


Alys of Evenfall Hall

by DaemonMeg



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Anne of Green Gables AU set on Tarth, F/F, F/M, Family Fluff, Female Friendship, Female Protagonist, Fluff, Foster Care, Gen, In the style of LM Montgomery, Mash-up, Post - A Dance With Dragons, Post-Canon, Post-War, Romance not a focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-02-16 17:17:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 78,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2278119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaemonMeg/pseuds/DaemonMeg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Others have been driven back and a new ruler sits the Iron Throne.  Lady Brienne of Tarth and her squire Podrick Payne send for a boy to foster as a new squire, but the girl Alys Flowers arrives instead. The tale describes how Alys makes her way with Brienne, Pod, and the island folk of Tarth and how they all cope with the aftermath of the wars. </p><p>This fic is now complete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Septa Roelle is Surprised

**Author's Note:**

> Anne of Green Gables is in the public domain and can be [read for free online](http://www.literature.org/authors/montgomery-lucy-maud/anne-of-green-gables/). I own nothing. The plot and much of the text belongs to Lucy Maud Montgomery and the characters and world belong to George R. R. Martin. This is a mash-up work, taking Montgomery's original text and inserting elements from Martin's World of Ice and Fire.
> 
> This was purely for fun for me and I thought I'd share it with you. Hopefully, you're a fan of LM Montgomery.

Septa Roelle lived just where the Tarth main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and mossy saxifrage and traversed by a brook that had its source back in the spring garden of Evenfall Hall. There were those that said it was a busy little brook in the start of its course through those tumbled stones, with secret dark pools and magnificent waterfalls. But by the time it reached Roelle’s cottage it was a quiet, orderly little stream, for not even a brook could run past Septa Roelle’s door without due respect for her station. The little creek probably knew that Septa Roelle was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place, she would never rest until she had ferreted out the details.

There are plenty of people in the Stormlands and in all the Seven Kingdoms, who make their neighbor’s business their own but neglect their own duties. Septa Roelle, however, was one of those rare people who can manage herself in addition to a whole community. She was a noted cottager; her work was always done and well done; she “ran” the sept on Tarth in the absence of a septon, she had been nursemaid and teacher alike for highborn ladies. Yet with all this, Septa Roelle found plenty of time to sit for hours at her window embroidering and keeping a sharp eye on the main road that crossed the hollow and wound up the steep hill beyond toward the keep. Since Tarth was an island off the coast of the Stormlands to the north of Shipbreaker Bay, anybody who went out of it or into it had to pass down that hill road to the docks and so run the unseen gauntlet of Septa Roelle’s all-seeing eye.

She was sitting there one afternoon in early Spring. The sun was coming in at the window and the breeze was warm from the Straits of Tarth. The bird cherry trees on the slope below Roelle’s cottage were in full bloom, and several young men from Lowtown hiked up the steep road toward the keep for arms practice. Podrick Payne should have been already in the practice yard. Septa Roelle knew that he should because she had heard him tell Willym the weaver’s boy yesterday evening. Willym had asked him of course, for Podrick Payne had never been known to volunteer information about anything in his whole life. She’d heard Lady Brienne say once that in the early days of their acquaintance, she’d asked Pod to stick his tongue out to be sure he even had one.

And yet here was Podrick Payne, in the middle of the afternoon of a busy day, during which he should have been sparring with young men-at-arms, riding his horse placidly down the slope towards the docks at Lowtown. He was leading a mule and palfrey. Moreover, he wore his good tabard and brigandine in the blue and pink instead of his gambeson and cuirass which was plain proof that he was doing something official. Now, where was Podrick Payne going and why was he going there?

Had it been any other man on Tarth, Septa Roelle might have guessed the answer to both of those questions. But Podrick so rarely went from Evenfall Hall without Lady Brienne that it must be something pressing and unusual that was taking him to Lowtown. He was the shyest man alive and hated to have to go among strangers or to any place where he might have to talk. Podrick, dressed up with his blue and pink tabard, leading a mule and palfrey, was something that didn’t happen often. Septa Roelle, try as she might, couldn’t imagine the cause and her afternoon’s peace was ruined.

“I’ll just climb up to Evenfall Hall after tea and find out from Bri where he’s gone and why,” the septa decided. “He doesn’t generally go to Lowtown this time of year and he never visits anyone. If he’d needed supplies for the keep, he’d never dress in Tarth’s colors and take a palfrey to the dock district. He would have sent a seneschal or a page runner. He wasn’t riding fast enough for another invasion, like when the Golden Company took Cape Wrath. Something must have happened last night to start him off. I’m puzzled, that’s what, and I won’t know a minute’s peace of mind until I know what has taken Podrick Payne out of Evenfall Hall today.”

Accordingly after tea, Septa Roelle set out. She had not far to go. In her dotage, Lord Selwyn had settled the rambling cottage on her, with serving folk set to tend to her needs, not a quarter mile from the keep. To be sure, the steep hill made it feel further on her old bones. The Tarths of old built on the western headland overlooking the Straits taking advantage of the calmer waters facing away from the Narrow Sea. There it sat still, re-imagined as Evenfall Hall, squatting on the very bluffs overlooking the sea. The keep was built of granite, quarried from who knows where as Tarth was limestone to its core, and was damp, drafty, and old-fashioned. Septa Roelle did not call living in such a place _living_ at all.

“It’s just _staying_ , that’s what,” she said as she stepped along the deep-rutted path bordered with stone brambles and mountain pansies. “It’s no wonder Brienne and Podrick are both a little odd, living away up there by themselves. Servants aren’t much company, though dear knows if they were, they’d never let you forget about it. I’d rather be at court, surrounded by proper ladies and lords. To be sure, they seem contented enough. But then, they’re probably used to it. A body can get used to anything, even to being hanged, as both Pod and Bri are fond of saying-whatever that means.”

With this, Septa Roelle stepped beneath the portcullis and into the bailey of Evenfall Hall. Very neat and precise was the bailey, with its own smithy and workhouses all set out in orderly fashion. There were great willows set out in the area once claimed for the godswood. Roelle was happy to see well tended herbs and root plants in logical rows. She was pleased to see the kitchen maids weren’t slack in their duties since she left the keep. Not a stray stone or stick littered the garden paths, and privately the septa wondered if Brienne had ordered the yard to be swept daily.

Septa Roelle let herself in through the kitchens as she was wont to do in the olden days. The kitchens at Evenfall Hall were well apportioned and cheerful, though they were painfully clean. In her years, she would never trust a clean kitchen. The hearth in the east kitchen was cold and never used except on feast days. The hearth in the west kitchen however, was always lit. As with many castles, Cook Sara always kept a pot simmering and a ladle hung nearby on the stonework. Many a guardsman had helped himself to the stew to tide him over during a watch.

Roelle made her way up the narrow servant stair to the lord’s quarters. As she mounted the steps, her mind wandered and she remembered suddenly that it was no longer Lord Selwyn that awaited in the parlor upstairs but the Lady Brienne instead. The Winter had not been good to them all. In the second floor solar, the windows looked east and west, the new spring sun fairly glowed through the leaded windows, and a fire flickered cheerily in several braziers placed about the room. Through the east window, there was a fair view of the practice yard and the stables. But the west. The west window looked out over the sea and the Stormlands beyond. There were a few craft plying their trade in the Straits, hauling up the days catch or shuttling merchandise to the mainland. Mostly there, the septa could see the forests outside Storm’s End, the alders, the elders, and the wych elm. It did her heart good to see so much green again after so long a Winter. Here sat Lady Brienne, when she took the time to sit at all, always keeping herself busy with the duties of Evenfall Hall, and here she sat now, pouring over missives from the Seven knew where, and the table behind her was laid with a platter from the kitchens for supper.

Septa Roelle, before she had fairly closed the door, had taken a mental note of everything that was on that table. There were three plates laid, so that Brienne must be expecting someone brought back with Podrick. But the dishes were the daily tin plates commonly seen in the guards’ feasthall and only an ewer of water instead of wine, so the lady’s company must not be anyone of import. Yet, why did Podrick wear the ceremonial tabard? Septa Roelle was practically lightheaded with the mystery surrounding quiet, unremarkable Evenfall Hall.

“Good evening, my Lady Brienne,” Septa Roelle said briskly, giving only a perfunctory curtsey. “This is a fine evening, isn’t it?”

Brienne sighed and set her pen back in the inkwell before acknowledging Roelle’s presence. The septa gritted her teeth. Something akin to loving exasperation had always existed between the two women, perhaps because of their dissimilarities and long acquaintance.

Brienne was tall, broad-shouldered, and homely for a woman. She was all hard planes of muscles, unfortunate freckles, and, since returning home from war, horribly disfigured with facial scarring on one cheek that pulled her mouth into a perpetual grimace. Her hair was the color of straw and just as coarse, no matter what Roelle had attempted with it when Brienne had still been her charge. Today, she wore it bound in a short queue that she twisted up into a knot at the neck stabbed through with two hairpins. She looked like a rigid woman accustomed to hard experience, which she was, but there was still something about her blue eyes that suggested something deeper and worthwhile.

“Good day, Septa Roelle,” said the Lady Brienne, inclining her head in recognition of her position. “Won’t you sit down? How have you been?”

“Pretty well,” answered Roelle. “I was concerned you weren’t when I saw young Pod starting off toward Lowtown. I thought he might be headed toward the healer’s.”

Brienne’s lips twitched in understanding. She had expected Septa Roelle to call up at the hall. She had known the sight of her squire set towards the docks would be too much for her old septa’s curiosity.

“Oh no, I’m quite well, thought sometimes my shoulder still pulls,” she said. “Podrick went to the docks. We’re getting a new pageboy from the Reach and he’s coming on the ship from Oldtown.”

If Brienne had said that Podrick had gone to Lowtown to meet the Children of the Forest, Septa Roelle could not have been more astonished. “Are you serious, Brienne?” she demanded.

“Yes, of course,” Brienne affirmed, as if getting pageboys from the Reach of all places were the usual work in any Stormlord’s keep.

“In the name of the Seven, what possessed you to have such a notion? _From the Reach?_ ” Roelle asked disapprovingly. Brienne had done this without her advice, and must, of course, be disapproved.

“I’ve been thinking of it for some time-since before the Winter in fact,” explained Brienne. “Margaery Tyrell was here one day before the harvest feast and she said that Willas was taking on two new pages and she would get a girl from the orphanage soon as well. So Pod and I talked it over off and on ever since. There are so many fractured Houses following all the fighting. Podrick and I saw firsthand how many children were left homeless and without families, even noble children were orphaned. Many of the old houses have taken on orphans as pages and squires, and sometimes as heirs. So I’ve thought about it for some time, and as Pod will soon take his vows and succeed to House Payne after Ser Ilyn, I find myself in need of another squire. We discussed it, and Pod will train the boy himself. We would have taken on some boys from the Stormlands, but apparently they’re all being sent to Storm’s End, so the Reach it is. We had a raven from the Citadel saying that our new boy would arrive today, so Podrick is off to meet him at the docks.”

Septa Roelle prided herself on always speaking her mind, even to old Lord Selwyn in his day. She decided to speak it now, though Brienne had ever been ungrateful for her advice.

“Well, Brienne, I’ll just tell you plain that I think you’re doing a might foolish thing. Those flower lords can’t be trusted at all. You’ve seen that yourself during the War of the Five Kings: first for our dear Lord Renly then turn coat for the lions without so much as a glance at Lord Stannis. You don’t know what you’re getting. You’re bringing a strange child into this House and you don’t know a single thing about him nor what his disposition is like nor what sort of parents he had nor how he’s likely to turn out. What if he’s like those Frey boys they took on at Winterfell? If you had asked my advice in the matter-which you didn’t do, Brienne-I’d have said for Mother’s sake not to think of such a thing, that’s what.”

Roelle’s peculiar form of comforting seemed neither to offend nor to alarm Brienne. She merely pulled another page of vellum before her and began reading the lists from the seneschal.

“I won’t deny I have reservations, but Podrick was set on it. And that man so seldom sets his mind on something that when he does I always feel obliged to give in. And as for the risk, there’s risks in people’s having children of their own if it comes to that-they don’t always turn out well. We’ve seen enough of that the last ten years. And then the Reach is right close to the Stormlands. It isn’t as if we were getting him from the North or Braavos. He can’t be much different from ourselves.

“Well, I hope it will turn out all right,” said Septa Roelle in a tone that plainly said she had doubts. “Only don’t say I didn’t warn you if he lets pirates into the harbor at Lowtown or sets wildfire to Evenfall Hall. I heard tell of a page killing all the men-at-arms up at Harrenhal with poisoned soup, only it was a girl in that instance.”

“Well, we’re not getting a girl,” said Brienne, as if poisoning guardsmen were a purely feminine accomplishment and not to be dreaded in the case of a pageboy. “I’d never dream of taking a girl for Pod to train as a squire. I wonder at Margaery for doing it, but she wouldn’t shrink from adopting a whole orphanage if she took it into her head. You heard the stories of the work she did in King’s Landing I’m sure.”

Septa Roelle would have liked to stay until Podrick came home with his imported pageboy, but she knew it would be at least another two hours before he could make the return trip from the docks and so decided to go down to the kitchens and get the rest news from the kitchen maids. She learned long ago that one wanted to find out the full details of any affair, there is nothing like hearing the gossip from the kitchen staff. So the septa took herself away, somewhat to Brienne’s relief, for the latter felt her doubts and fears about fostering a child reviving under the influence of Septa Roelle’s pessimism.

“Well, of all things that ever were or ever will be!” Septa Roelle exclaimed when she was safely down the hall from Brienne’s study. “It does really seem as if I must be dreaming. Well, I’m sorry for that poor young one and no mistake. Brienne doesn’t know anything about children and was nothing but trouble when she was in my care. She won’t observe any of the proprieties, that’s for sure, and I’m doubtful as to young Podrick’s suitability to train the child. I wouldn’t be in that child’s shoes for anything. My, but I pity him, that’s what.”

So said Septa Roelle to the tapestry hanging on the second floor landing, startling a passing serving maid, but if she could have seen the child who was waiting patiently at the dock in Lowtown at that very moment her pity would have been still deeper and more profound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As not much is known about Tarth, I freely headcanon it as similar to the Aran Islands of Ireland in geology and botany. [Here is a photo](https://33.media.tumblr.com/a1dd20064f6cd8c0e2687cd7824fdcf5/tumblr_nbppycHvKM1tluo3co1_1280.jpg) of what I think the brook looks like as it passes Septa Roelle's cottage.
> 
> Update: The World of Ice and Fire was released on October 28th. This means much of what I've written will likely be not canon compliant.


	2. Podrick Payne is Surprised

Podrick Payne, his sorrel mare, his palfrey, and his mule trod comfortably over the eight miles from Evenfall Hall to Lowtown. It was a pretty road, running between snug cottages and fishing shanties, and now and again past a bit of a misty vale or a karst hilltop where wild cranesbill peeked out between stony outcroppings. The air was sharp with the tang of salt and iodine and the bluff sloped away to a gentle beach paved with crushed shell and granite boulders covered in algae.

Podrick enjoyed the ride after his own fashion, except during the moments when he met the people of Tarth along the way and was forced to nod or say a few words. For now that he was squired in truth to the Lady Brienne, he was supposed to exchange pleasantries on the road with the island folk, whether he knew them or not.

Podrick dreaded all nobles except for Lady Brienne, and perhaps Lord Tyrion or Ser Hyle. He had an uncomfortable feeling that the lords and ladies were secretly laughing at him and his tongue-tied ways. He may have been quite right in his assumption. At eighteen, he was still a skinny lad and had an ungainly grace about him, as if he'd never outgrown his coltish years. His straight, thin hair he wore to his shoulders, though he normally tied it back in a neat queue like many soldiers. His chin bore the signs of struggling peach fuzz, and try as he might, Podrick had not been able to grow a full beard like many of the swarthy men on the island. He looked much the same as he had at thirteen when he first dogged the heels of Brienne of Tarth, only now he was a bit taller and perhaps a bit more talkative than had been his wont.

When he reached Lowtown there was no sign of any ship. He thought he was too early, so he hobbled the horses in the yard of the small tavern near the dock and went over to the harbormaster's office. The long pier was almost deserted. The only living creature in sight were the fishwives, a few workers loading casks into a warehouse, and a single girl sitting on a heap of nets at the far end. Podrick, barely noting that it was a girl at all, sidled past her as quickly as possible without looking at her. Had he looked he could hardly have failed to notice the tense way she held her shoulders and the expression of hope on her face. She was sitting there waiting for something or somebody and, since sitting and waiting was the only thing to do just then, she sat and waited with all her might.

Podrick found the harbormaster locking up the tariff box and getting ready to go home for supper. He asked him if the ship from Oldtown should arrive soon.

"The Oldtown cog, aye. She slipped from port with the morning tides, did she," answered the harbormaster. "In a hurry to catch the trade winds to Gulltown and then on to Whiteharbor, said the cap'n to me, yessir she did. But there was a passenger dropped off for you-a little girl. She's sittin' out there on them there nets. I asked her to go into the Broken Mast, but she insisted she preferred to stay outside.  She'll be trouble for yer lady, I should say."

"I'm not expecting a girl," Podrick said blankly. "It's a boy I've come for. A new page. Margaery Tyrell was to send him over from the Reach for me to train as Lady Brienne's new squire."

The harbormaster spit his chew off the side of the dock.

"Guess there's some mistake. The cap'n came ashore herself and gave her into my charge. Said you and yer lady were fostering her from some flower lord and that you would be along soon to gather her up. That's all I know about it, and I haven't got any more children, boys or girls, underfoot as you can see."

"I don't understand," said Podrick helplessly, wishing that Brienne were there to help him cope with the situation.

"Well, you'd better ask the girl," the harbormaster said over his shoulder as he walked away. "I dare say she can tell you what's what. She's got a mouth on her, that one. Maybe they were out of boys."

And with that, the harbormaster trod away toward home, hungry after a day's work, which left the unfortunate Podrick with a task harder than when he killed Ser Mandon Moore-talk to a strange girl and demand why she wasn't a boy. Podrick groaned in spirit then turned and shuffled dispiritedly down the pier towards her.

She had been watching him ever since he had passed her and she had her eyes on him now. Podrick was not looking at her directly and would not have seen what she was really like if he had been, but an ordinary observer would have seen this: A child of about eleven, dressed in a very short, very tight, very ugly dress of yellowed un-dyed wool. She wore a faded brown square of cloth tied over her hair and extending down her back were braids of very thick brown hair. Her face was small, peaked, and thin. Her mouth was too large for her face and so were her eyes, which were decidedly hazel, as they looked brown or green or golden depending on her mood or the lighting.

Podrick was spared the ordeal of speaking first, for as soon as she determined that he was coming to her she stood up, grasping with one thin bony hand the strap of an old, worn out satchel. She held her other hand out to him in greeting.

"I suppose you are Squire Podrick Payne of Tarth?" she asked in a clear and sweet voice. "I'm very glad to see you. I was beginning to be afraid you weren't coming for me and I was imagining all the things that might have happened to prevent you. I had made up my mind that if you didn't come for me tonight I'd go down the dock and climb beneath onto the sand and stay there all night. I wouldn't be a bit afraid and it would be lovely to sleep on the beach all night with the lull of the waves and the cool sea breeze, don't you think? You could imagining you were a mermaid living in a sea cave, couldn't you? And I was quite sure you would come for me in the morning if you didn't tonight."

Podrick had taken the scrawny little hand awkwardly in his. Then and there he decided what to do. He could not tell this waif of a girl with her beseeching eyes that there had been a mistake. He would take her back to Evenfall Hall and let Lady Brienne do that. She couldn't be left in Lowtown anyway, no matter the mistake, so all questions could be put off until they were safely back at the keep.

"I'm sorry I was late," Podrick said shyly. "Come along. The horses are over at the Broken Mast. Give me your bag."

"Oh, I can carry it," the child said cheerfully. "It isn't heavy. I've got everything I own in it, but it isn't heavy. And if I don't carry it a certain way, the strap pulls loose and all my things tumble to the ground, so I'd better keep it because I know the exact way to do it. It's only an old counterpane afterall. Oh, I'm so very glad you came, even if it would have been nice to sleep on the sand and under the stars by the sea all night. We have a long way to go, right? Lady Margaery said it was eight miles. I'm glad because I love horses. Oh, it seems so wonderful that I'm going to live with Lady Brienne and belong to her. I've never belonged to anybody since my ma died, not really. But the brothel was worse after she died. I'd only been there without my mother for four months, but that was enough. I don't suppose you were ever in a brothel, so you can't possibly understand what it is like. It's worse than anything you could imagine. Lady Margaery said it was wicked of me to talk like that, but I didn't mean to be wicked. It's so easy to be wicked without knowing any better, isn't it? There were good, you know. The girls. But the men who visited sometimes were loud or angry. Sometimes they would hit the other girls and I didn't like the way they looked at me neither. It was pretty interesting to imagine things about them though. Maybe the girl next to you was really the daughter of the king, who had lain with her mother as he rode through town. I used to lie away at nights and imagine things like that, because I didn't have time in the day for working so hard. Guess that's why I'm so thin. I am dreadful thin, aren't I? There isn't an ounce of meat on my bones. I do love to imagine I'm nice and plump, with dimples in my elbows, and I never go hungry."

With this, Podrick's companion stopped talking, partly to breathe but also partly because they had reached the horses. Not another word did she say until they had left Lowtown and were riding up the hill that would take them home. Here, the road cut deeply into the earth and the banks were fringed with wild cherry trees and their blooms hung heavily in the air several feet above their heads.

The child put out her hand and broke off a branch of wild cherry that brushed against the side of her palfrey. "Isn't that beautiful? What did that tree, leaning out from the bank, all white and lacy, make you think of?" she asked.

"I couldn't say, m'lady," said Podrick.

"Why a noble lady from Highgarden of course. A real lady all in white and pink with fruit and blossoms on her dress. I've never seen a real lady other than Lady Margaery, so I picture they all must look as beautiful as her. I hear that her dress for one of her weddings was completely made out of Highgarden roses! Can you imagine! I don't ever expect to have nice dresses like that myself. I'm so homely nobody will ever want to marry me, unless it's a blind mummer. Mummers are never very particular. But I do hope that one day I can have a dress all pink and white and with wild cherries pinned to the bodice. I just love pretty clothes and I've never had a pretty dress in my life. But I can look forward to it mayn't I? Last week when I left the brothel I felt so ashamed because I had to wear this horrid old wool dress. All the bastards had to wear them, you know. A merchant in High Hill last Winter donated thousands and thousands of yards of coarse wool to the brothel. Some people said they was horse blankets, but all thems horses been ate up during the Long Night and he couldn't sell them neither, so he gave the wool to us. But I'd rather believe it was out of the kindness of his heart, wouldn't you? When we got on the ship I felt as if everybody must be looking at me and pitying me. But I just went to work and imagined that I had on the most beautiful pale blue silk dress-just like Lady Margaery-because when you are imagining you might as well imagine something worthwhile. I felt cheered up right away and I enjoyed my trip to Tarth with all my might. I wasn't a bit sick coming over in the boat. Neither was Lady Margaery although she confessed to me privately that she usually is. She said she hadn't time to get sick, listening to all my stories the whole time. She said she never saw another girl like me with the tendency to chatter non-stop. But if I kept her from being seasick it's a mercy I did chatter, isn't it? And I wanted to see everything that was to be seen on that boat, because I didn't know whether I'd ever have another opportunity. Oh, there are a lot more cherry-trees all in bloom! This island is the bloomiest place. I just love it already, and I'm so glad I'm going to live here. I've always heard that Tarth was the prettiest place in the world with seas the very color of sapphires, and I used to imagine I was living here, but I never really expected I would. It's delightful when your imaginations come true, isn't it?"

"I couldn't say, m'lady," answered Podrick.

"It just makes me feel glad to be alive. It's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn't talk? If you say so I'll stop. I can STOP when I make up my mind to it, although it's difficult."

Podrick, much to his own surprise, was enjoying himself. Like most quiet folks he liked talkative people when they were willing to do the talking themselves and did not expect him to keep up his end of it. But he had never expected to enjoy the company of a little girl. Women were bad enough as it was but little girls were worse. But this little hazel-eyed witch of a girl was different, and although he found it rather difficult to keep up with her train of thought, he felt that he kind of liked her chatter.

"Oh, you can talk as much as you like. I don't mind, m'lady," he said decidedly.

"Oh, I'm so glad. I know you and I are going to get along together fine. Lady Margaery said your place was called Evenfall Hall. I asked her all about it. And she said it was the great keep on just the most beautiful island and that it's surrounded by shady dells and cool pools and high mountains and misty waterfalls. But she didn't tell me how pretty your trees and wildflowers are. In the Reach, all the land has been turned to orderly farms and orchards. The trees look just like a movement of infantry marching along in straight little rows. But here! Here on the island the flowers just tumble down the sides of hills and wave hello from the bank. It makes me want to cry when I think of the poor trees in the orchards. I think they would be happier here out in a great big woods and with all sorts of other trees around and little mosses and hyssops and butterwort growing over their roots and a brook not far away and birds singing in their branches and able to look out over the Narrow Sea and watch the birds wheeling in the sky and the ships pass by in the Straits. Do you think they would be happier here? Is there a brook anywhere near Evenfall Hall? I forgot to ask Lady Margaery that."

Podrick smiled. For once he had an answer for her. "Well, m'lady, there's a little stream that starts in the spring garden up at the hall. It tumbles down near the path and crosses the road to Lowtown before it finally lets out in the Straits."

"It's always been one of my dreams to live near a brook. I never expected I would, though. All I had was a well. Dreams don't often come true, do they? Wouldn't it be nice if they did? But just now I feel nearly perfectly happy. Oh Squire Payne! Squire Payne!! _Oh Squire Payne!!!_ "

Podrick Payne looked over to be sure that the strange child had not fallen from her saddle. Relieved to find nothing astonishing had happened, he turned back to keep his eye on the road. Then he saw what had sent young Alys into such a frenzy. They had simply rounded a curve in the road and found themselves in a little hollow that the small folk of Tarth affectionately referred to as the “orchard”.

The “orchard” was a stretch of road four or five hundred yards long, completely arched over with huge, wide-spreading apple trees, planted years ago by an eccentric old farmer who'd had to haul in extra soil from the mainland. Overhead was one long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the boughs the air was full of a purple twilight and far ahead a glimpse of painted sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of a cathedral aisle.

Its beauty seemed to strike the child dumb. She leaned back in the saddle, one small hand clasped to her breast, her face lifted rapturously to the white splendor above. Even when they had passed out from under the arched branches and were riding along the final slope to Evenfall Hall she never moved nor spoke. Still with rapt face she gazed afar into the sunset west, with eyes that saw visions trooping splendidly across that glowing background. Three more miles passed in silence, and it seemed to Podrick that the girl child could hold her tongue as energetically as she could talk.

“I guess you’re feeling pretty tired and hungry,” Podrick ventured to say at last, assuming those were the reasons for the prolonged silence. “But we haven’t very far to go now, only another mile.”

She came out of her reverie with a deep sigh and looked at him with the dreamy gaze of a soul that had been wondering afar, star-led. They had driven over a crest of a hill. Beyond it the high bluffs dropped off to the Straits of Tarth, plunging two hundred feet or more to the water below. Here the sound of the gulls warred with the boom of the waves on the limestone cliffs. The water was a glory of many shifting hues, all deep greens and frothy turquoise and yes-shades of sapphire.

Below them was a dry moat surrounded by sharpened stakes taller than a man. A bridge spanned it midway and led to a gate in a stout bailey wall. Above and beyond could be seen several more walls of varying height walling off the land in concentric semi-circles. Behind that loomed the imposing fortress gaily called Evenfall Hall, though in truth it was a fortified castle. The round towers rose up from the headland several stories higher than the curtain wall. There wasn’t a corner in sight, as even on the leeward side of the island, storms from the Narrow Sea were wild and strong and could knock over straight walls. Outside the bailey, several dry-stack walls wound around dividing the fields into pasturage for the keep’s livestock. In one, heather grew rampant in a vivid purple; in another, sheep and small number of cattle grazed side by side. Here and there, cranes-bill or nettle peeked amid the loose stone of the field walls.

“There’s Evenfall Hall,” came Podrick’s simple statement.

“Why do you call it that?” Alys asked with eyes wide.

“I suppose it’s because it’s on the west side of the island, so the last of the evening sun shines on the hall,” he said after some thought.

“Oh,” was all that the girl said. After a few minutes more riding, she ventured to ask, “Are there many other little girls that live here?”

“I couldn’t say m’lady,” he answered cautiously, for he did not want to get the girl’s hopes up yet knowing Brienne was expecting a boy in her stead.

“Oh! I so wish Lady Margaery had been able to describe this to me. All she said was that it was an island castle with harsh sea winds and a drafty hall. I hadn’t any real idea what it looked like. But now that I’ve seen it, I feel like it is home. Oh, Squire Payne, I feel like I’m in a dream. Do you know, my arm must be black and blue from the elbow up, for I’ve pinched myself so many times today. Every little while a horrible sickening feeling would come over me and I’d be so afraid it was all a dream. Then I’d pinch myself to see if it was real, until suddenly I remembered that even supposing it was only a dream I’d better go on dreaming as long as I could. So I stopped pinching. But it is real and now I’m almost home.”

She fell silent with a sigh and Podrick shifted uneasily in his saddle. He was glad it would be Brienne and not he who would have to tell this waif that the home she longed for was not to be hers after all. They drove over the little bridge over the dry moat, where it was already dark in the lengthening shadows, and in between the concentric rings of walls that protected the keep. By the time they rode beneath the last portcullis, Podrick was shrinking from the disappointment and grief he saw coming for his young charge. When he thought of that ray of hope being quenched in her eyes he had an uncomfortable feeling it would feel worse than all the times he’d had to kill since the War of the Five Kings had begun. It was much the same feeling as when he’d had to kill a rabbit or some other game for their dinner.

The courtyard was rather dark as their horses’ hooves struck the cobbles as the sun had slunk west behind Evenfall Hall. He could hear the rushing of the sea as it washed over the base of the sea cliffs.

“Listen to the waves talking in their sleep,” she whispered, as he lifted her from the saddle. “What nice dreams they must have!”

Then, holding tightly to her sack of all her worldy possessions, she followed him into Evenfall Hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See [this post](http://daemonmeg.tumblr.com/post/97184072313/reference) for views of the east and west coasts of Tarth, the wall that surrounds Evenfall Hall, Podrick's view from the road to Lowtown, and the fields of Tarth subdivided by dry stack stone walls.


	3. Brienne of Tarth is Surprised

Brienne came briskly forward as Podrick rode into the inner bailey through the gate under the murder-hole. But when her eyes fell on the odd little figure in raw wool with the long brown hair and wide hazel eyes, she stopped short in amazement.

“Pod, who’s that?” she exclaimed. “Where is the boy?”

“There wasn’t any boy,” said Podrick wretchedly. “There was only _her_.” He nodded at the child, remembering that he had never even asked her name.

“No boy! But there must have been a boy,” Brienne insisted. “We sent word to Lady Margaery to send a boy.”

“Well, she didn’t. She brought _her_. I asked the harbormaster. And I had to bring her home. She couldn’t be left there on the docks, no matter where the mistake had come in.”

“This is a fine jest,” grumbled Brienne.

During this, the child had remained silent, her eyes roving from one to the other, all the animation fading out of her face. Suddenly she seemed to grasp the full meaning of what had been said. Dropping her sack she sprang forward a step and fisted her hands in her skirts.

“You don’t want me!” she cried. “You don’t want me because I’m not a boy! I might have expected it. Nobody ever did want me. I might have known it was all too beautiful to last. I might have known nobody really did want me.”

Sitting down on the paving stones by the keep’s entryway, flinging her arms upon the steps, and burying her face in them, she proceeded to cry stormily. Brienne and Podrick looked at each other in shock over the girl’s shaking shoulders. Neither of them knew what to say or do.  Bandage a soldier, yes, that they could do.  Comfort a crying girl?  Finally, Brienne stepped lamely into the breach.

“Well, well, there no need to cry about it.”

“Yes, there is need!” The girl child raised her head quickly, revealing a tear-stained face and trembling lips. “You would cry too if your mother had died and you had come to a place you thought was going to be home and found that they didn’t want you because you weren’t a boy. Oh, this is a tragedy _most severe_.”

Brienne’s grimace softened to something that might be mistaken for a smile. “Well, don’t cry any more. We’re not going to throw you into the sea tonight. You’ll have to stay here until we discover the root of the mistake. What’s your name?”

The child hesitated, twisting her hands together in nervousness. “Alys Flowers.”

“Alys Flowers. I had a sister once called Alysanne,” she pointed out, hoping that would be of some comfort.  She turned aside to Podrick and hissed quietly, “Margaery sent a bastard to Evenfall Hall?”

“Oh, I’m not ashamed of it. All the children where I lived were natural born. When I was young, I used to imagine my father spirited me away to grow up in a great hall just like this. My father tried to claim me, you know, but the women would throw out the stew pots and wash water on him whenever he came to visit me.  Or at least that's what Dalla told to me,” young Alys explained.

“Very well, Alys Flowers, can you tell us how this mistake came to be made? We sent word to Lady Margaery to bring us a pageboy for Pod here to train as a squire. Why did she send to me a girl?” Brienne pressed her lips together and reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose.

“Oh yes, Lady Margaery was very specific with me why I was to come live with you. The messengers she sent to the Secret Rose asked for me by name and they had to pay money to Mistress Tansy. You don’t know how delighted I was. I couldn’t sleep all last night for joy. Oh,” she said and whirled on Podrick with her fists on her hips, “why didn’t you tell me in Lowtown that you didn’t want me and leave me there? If I hadn’t seen the blooming trees and tumbling waterfalls and keep, it wouldn’t be so hard.”

Podrick avoided Alys’ eyes and turned to Brienne. “I’m going to take the horses to the stable, Ser-m’lady,” he mumbled as he rushed away, shoulders hunched.

“Alys, did Lady Margaery bring any other children over to the island besides you?” Brienne wanted to know.  Perhaps there was still a boy waiting at the docks.

“She brought Nettle for herself. Nettle is only five and she is very beautiful with golden brown skin and dark eyes. If I was very beautiful and had honey brown skin and dark eyes would you keep me?”

“No. Tarth is no place for a girl anymore, not since the wars.  All the island has now are watchtowers and drunk sailors," she answered, hoping to discourage her.  When she saw Alys' eyes light with interest, Brienne continued.  "We want a boy to learn to squire for me after Podrick leaves the island. Well, come on! Pick up your bag and come in to the kitchens. I’m hungry just looking at how skinny you are.”

Alys grabbed up her bag where it slumped near the stairs and followed her meekly through the great double doors that were twice Brienne’s height. She trotted at the large woman’s heels, swinging her eyes from side to side as she tried to memorize every bit of Evenfall Hall. Shortly, she found herself in the kitchens and a sweet-natured woman named Sara with curly ginger hair, round hips, and flour dusted on her nose set a mug of tea and a tin plate with crusty brown bread in front of her. This was quickly followed by small crocks of creamy yellow butter and crab-apple preserve. The girl found her appetite had entirely fled and all she did was sip dispiritedly at her tea.

“You’re not eating anything,” the cook pointed out sharply, eying her as if it were a serious shortcoming.

Alys sighed. “I do hope you won’t be offended because I can’t eat. Everything is extremely nice, but I still cannot eat with a broken heart.”

“I guess she’s tired,” said Podrick, who slipped in through the door that led from the bailey. “Best to show her to one of the guest chambers, Ser-I mean m’Lady.”

Brienne had been wondering where Alys should be put up for the evening. She had prepared the adjoining chamber to Pod’s room for the new pageboy they had expected. But, although it was neat and clean, it did not seem appropriate any longer to put a girl there even for a night, so there remained only the south bedchamber that overlooked Shipbreaker Bay. Brienne bid Pod to carry the lamp and told them both to follow her, which Alys did, dragging her feet as she trailed behind.

They took the narrow servants’ stair that coiled up the south tower. On the next floor, the bedchambers were all arranged on the wall above the bluff. The builders on Tarth had planned ahead, and each had a private garderobe which emptied down the west wall of the keep, past two hundred feet down the sea cliffs, and into the water below. The curved hall they walked down was perhaps painfully clean. The soot marks had been scrubbed from the ashlar above each wall sconce, small tables were set at intersecting corridors with extra candles, and the woven tapestries that hung on the wall looked freshly shaken of dust. Alys, self-conscious at the almost rigid organization, ran a hand down her wool dress as if rubbing it with her palm would make herself appear cleaner.

Brienne shouldered open a plank door on the south end of the corridor and Podrick set his lamp down on a round three-legged table. The arrow loops looked out over the bay, and even from this distance, Alys could see the twinkle of the watchtowers that lined the bay of an evening.

“I suppose you have nightclothes.” Brienne shifted uncomfortably while Pod left the room.

“Yes. I have two that Tansy gave to me, but they are fearfully skimpy, being the castoffs of the other women at the Rose.” Alys pulled them from her bag and Brienne gasped in alarm to discover the little girl holding garments normally only seen in the rankest of brothels. “I hate skimpy nightdresses. I never feel warm enough in them. But I can dream I that I have a lovely trailing one in softest wool with lace at the sleeves.”

“Wait right here,” Brienne ordered, and she rushed down the hall and flipped open her own clothes press. She pulled a worn shirt from the back. It was a little threadbare perhaps at the hem and under the arms but serviceable. She strode crisply back towards the south chamber with her findings and nearly thrust it beneath the girl’s nose. “Here. It’s brushed flannel. My shirt should be long enough to serve as a nightdress for you. I’ll light the taper on the mantle so you have light to undress by.”

When Brienne had left, Alys looked around the chamber wistfully as she changed out of her traveling clothes. The outside wall was curved, following the shape of the headland. There was a little wooden door between the arrow loops that opened on a narrow compartment for a garderobe. She lifted the lid and peered down into the blackness of the nighttime sea, giving a shudder. The low whoosh of the waves two hundred feet below could be heard through the darkness. The floor was bare, and the ashlar stones were cool to her bare feet. On the north wall stood a high bed with tall posts. It was in the old fashioned style with heavy curtains tied with braided cord at each corner. Another swath of fabric hung over it. Opposite the bed stood a small stand with a bowl and a pitcher upended to keep the dust out. Three iron hooks protruded from the wall next to it and Alys promptly hung her travel-stained wool dress. There was a simple footlocker on the other side of the stand and she quickly stowed her pack inside of it. She stripped off her small clothes and pulled the brushed flannel on over her head. It actually hung longer than the dress she’d worn on the trip and was the softest material she’d ever felt next to her skin. Suddenly it was all too much and she rushed into the bed, burrowing her face in the down pillow pulling the blankets over her head.

Brienne returned to check on her, but when no answer came after she knocked, she let herself in. Cautiously she approached the bed. She stared down at the small lump beneath the bedclothes and awkwardly said, “Good night.” With that, she let down the curtains and pulled them close about the bed to keep out the chill. She was picking up the wavering taper and about to let herself out of the room when she heard the tiny voice from behind the bed curtains.

“How can you call it a _good_ night when you know it must be the very worst night I’ve ever had?”

Brienne walked slowly back down the servants’ stair to the kitchens below where she found Pod nursing a mug of ale-a rare pastime of his, only to be endured during times when he needed to mull something over. Over the years, Brienne and Pod both had ceased to stand on ceremony and found their way to snatching meals in the kitchen like common guardsmen.

She sat across from him at the table and leaned her forehead in to her hands. “This is a fine kettle of fish we’ve found ourselves in,” said Brienne. “I should have just gritted my teeth and gone to court myself to arrange for our new pageboy. Margaery has twisted this somehow into a tangled net beyond salvage. Now we’ll have to wait out the days waiting for the ravens to sort it all. This girl will have to go back, that’s for certain.”

“Yes, Ser, I suppose,” said Pod, who’d never lost the habit of calling Lady Brienne ‘Ser’.

“You suppose? Don’t you agree? You said yourself it was time I took another squire.”

“Well…she’s real nice, Ser, and it would be wretched to send her back to where she came from.”

She widened her eyes in horror. “Pod! You don’t mean to keep her, do you? What would I do with a little girl? Septa Roelle was very clear what a failure I’d made of it the first time around.”  And she never forgot it, not for one day.

“I guess you’re right, Ser-m’Lady,” he mumbled in apology.

“I am. What good would she be to us?”

“We might be some good to her,” he added unexpectedly.

“Podrick Payne, I believe you’re insensible. I can see plain as the frown on your face that you want to keep her and I can’t fathom why.”

“Ser, you should have heard her talk on the ride up from Lowtown. She was raised in a brothel.”

“A brothel?” Brienne’s eyebrows fairly raised into the sky at that revelation. “The Secret Rose. I should have suspected. What is Margaery playing at?”

Pod shook his head. “When I squired for Lord Tyrion, Margaery was always visiting the poorhouses and sending food from the Red Keep to the orphans of Flea Bottom. No, Ser. I think Lady Margaery just has a soft heart. Don’t forget she’s fostered all that would have her from the Crossroads Inn.”

Brienne was silent at the memory. Those were dark days that she didn’t like to remember. A hand stole up to cover the scarring on her cheek. She’d almost lost Podrick and Ser Hyle there.

“We can send for another boy and still keep her,” Pod pleaded. “She’d be company for you.”

“I’m not suffering for company,” said Brienne shortly. “And I’m not going to keep her.”

He stood up suddenly at that, rocking the bench loudly as he did. “As you say, my Lady. I’m going to bed.” And with that, Podrick Payne gave Brienne the most condescending bow possible and stalked off.

To bed went Podrick. Brienne, having difficulty losing the habits of a commanding soldier, made the rounds and touched base with the sentries before retiring to bed herself. And upstairs, in the south bedchamber on the second floor, a lonely, heartsick little girl cried herself to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brienne lives on an island. She uses fishing metaphors. It is known.
> 
> Follow [this link](https://www.google.com/search?q=castle+murderhole&client=firefox-a&hs=wxY&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=HCwYVOPmEJGuyASz2oGICg&ved=0CD4QsAQ&biw=1920&bih=969) to see what a murder-hole for a castle looks like. [Here](https://www.google.com/search?q=castle+garderobes&client=firefox-a&hs=4lt&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Py4YVJ6uJZCiyATR1YKoDg&ved=0CCoQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=969) is what a garderobe looks like. And [these photos](https://www.google.com/search?q=castle+arrow+loops&client=firefox-a&hs=0TE&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=3S4YVLGhOsucygTNgoCQAw&ved=0CCYQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=969) are what arrow loops look like.


	4. Morning at Evenfall Hall

It was broad daylight when Alys awoke and sat up in bed, staring confusedly at the bed curtains pulled back to admit the cheery light of spring. Through the slitted windows, she could see cloudless blue sky and wheeling gulls calling to one another.

For a moment she could not remember where she was. First came a delightful thrill, as something very pleasant; then a horrible remembrance. This was Evenfall Hall and they didn’t want her because she wasn’t a boy.

But it was morning and, yes, it was the scent of salt and iodine and kitchen herbs riding the breeze through her narrow window. With a bound she was out of bed and across the floor. She slung open the door to the garderobe and lifted the seat. In the morning light, she could see the white foam of the waves swirl around the jagged rocks at the base of the bluff. She tried to peer out the arrow loops for a better view but found she was too short. With a little effort, she managed to push the footlocker beneath one and gazed out. There in the outer bailey was Tarth’s godswood. The Andals had preserved the godswoods found throughout Westeros, Alys had learned once, even though they’d brought with them their seven faced god. A giant weirwood tree with its blood red leaves and white branches presided over the much smaller wood of alder and elm and here and there she saw flowering fruit trees in bloom dotting the bailey. Off to her left, she located the animal pens and storerooms set against the curtain wall. She stood there, poised on her toes, and lost to the room behind her until she was startled by a hand on her shoulder. Brienne had come in unheard by the small dreamer.

“It’s time you were dressed,” she said curtly.

Brienne really did not know how to talk to a child. Her brother and sisters all died while she was still a toddler and Septa Roelle had made sure she didn’t play with servants’ children at Evenfall Hall while growing up. Aside from a bashful, stammering young Podrick set on following her on her damned quest, she’d had little experience with children. Her mind flashed again to the Crossroads Inn and the children it had harbored for that short while during the war. A man once had promised to give her a castle full of children to run about, but she had rejected that option. And now her ignorance made her crisp and curt when she did not mean to be.

Alys climbed down from the footlocker. “Isn’t it wonderful!” she claimed, waving her hand at the world outside.

“It’s just the sea,” Brienne said dismissively.

“Oh, but it’s so blue. The truest blue I’ve ever seen. Lady Brienne, I dare say it is the very color of your eyes. And everything smells so clean here. It must be the sea air. It just makes the whole world fresh.”

“It’s just a trick of the sea wind.  You wouldn't like it when there’s a storm, then it swirls in all directions at once,” she explained matter-of-factly.

“Oh, Lady Brienne. I was so sad that I know I cannot stay here, but seeing the morning here at Evenfall Hall makes my heart glad. Now, when I’m back at The Secret Rose, I can remember this place and imagine I live here. I can imagine it was really me you wanted after all and that I was to stay here forever and ever. It will be a great comfort to me you know, once I’m back at the Rose.”

“Stop your rambling, girl, and get dressed and come downstairs and leave your day-dreaming,” Brienne said, perhaps a bit more harshly than she had meant. “We’ll breakfast in the kitchens. Do you remember the way? Wash your face and comb your hair. Leave the bed curtains open and turn your bed clothes back over the foot of the bed.”

Alys was downstairs in ten minutes time, with yesterday’s wool dress on and her brown hair pulled back in a simple twist. Her cheeks were pinked from scrubbing and she was proud she’d even remembered to air out the bed before leaving the chamber. She trailed one hand along the stone as she skipped down the servants’ stair, preparing herself to memorize every second of this place she could only have for herself for one day.

“I’m pretty hungry this morning,” she announced to the whole kitchen as she slipped into place on the bench. The cook gave the waif a sideways glance and dropped an extra helping of oats on her plate. “The world doesn’t seem such a howling wilderness as it did last night. I’m so glad it’s a sunshiny morning. But I like rainy mornings real well, too, though I’ve never seen a storm on the sea in the morning. I can imagine it is spectacular. But I’m glad it’s not rainy today because it’s easier to be cheerful and bear up under my sadness on this sunshiny day. It’s all very well to listen to sad songs when the minstrels come to play, but it’s not so nice when you really come to have them, is it?”

“Do you know how to hold your tongue, Alys?” asked Brienne. “You talk entirely too much for a child.”

Alys held her tongue for the rest of breakfast so obediently and thoroughly that her continued silence made Brienne rather nervous. She recalled all the times she had tripped over her own tongue as a child or had been shushed by Septa Roelle to the point of hurt feelings. Podrick also kept to silence, but this was natural, so that their meal was very quiet excepting the normal bustle of the kitchen staff.

As she ate, Alys became more and more fixated on the cooks and maids about their duties. Her wide hazel eyes seemed to follow their every movement. Brienne anxiously watched Alys concentrate on the goings on of the staff. She’d seen the look before. How could she not? In all the places she’d been to during the wars, there had been children-children who had learned to study the people around them so as to avoid notice or abuse. Now, she saw the habits of perpetual wariness settle on Alys’ features. It did not make Brienne comfortable to notice this.

A cold empty keep with a garrison of soldiers was no place for such a child. She should be in a snug cottage with a garden or even running around Highgarden with the Tyrell’s other vagabond children that Margaery had taken on. Perhaps the girl could be sent to Storm’s End, where there were more orphans being fostered.

Yet Podrick wished to keep her, of all unaccountable things. Brienne felt that he wanted it just as much this morning as he had the night before, and that he would go on wanting it. That was Podrick’s way, to cling to an idea in his head and cling to it with the most amazing silent persistence-persistence ten times more potent and effectual in its very silence than if he had talked it out in his stuttering ways.

When the meal was ended, Alys came out of her reverie and offered to wash the dishes, to the horror of Cook Sara and her scullery maids.

“Can you wash dishes then?” asked Brienne.

“Pretty well. I’m better at looking after children, though. I’ve had so much experience at that. It’s such a pity you haven’t any here for me to look after. There were ever so many babies at the Rose.”

Cook snorted, saw Brienne’s frown, and quickly turned to hide her smile.

“I feel as though I suddenly have more children than I could possibly care for at the moment. You’re problem enough in all honesty. What’s to be done with you I don’t know. Podrick is a most ridiculous man.”

“I can be a scullery girl or a chamber maid or I can be anything you want me to be. I like it here real well,” Aly pleaded with sad eyes.

“If Sara says it’s okay, you can wash the dishes, for I have enough to do today and I don’t know what to do with you. But don’t pester her with your ramblings and don’t be underfoot. I need to see the maester and have a letter sent to Lady Margaery this very afternoon. After you’ve finished helping Sara, go upstairs and make your bed.”

Alys washed the dishes deftly enough while Sara kept a sharp eye on the process. Later on, she made her bed less successfully, for she had never had a feather tick before. At the Rose, she’d only had a scratchy wool blanket and her straw pallet. But it was done somehow and smoothed down. Brienne ducked her head in Alys’ chamber and told her to go amuse herself in the bailey until she sent someone to fetch her for the noon meal.

Alys flew down the stairs and to the great double doors, face alight, eyes glowing. One the very threshold she stopped short, wheeled about, came back upstairs and sat down in Brienne’s study, light and glow effectively blotted out as if someone had clapped a candle snuffer over her head.

“What’s the matter now?” Brienne asked with annoyance.

“I don’t dare go out,” said Alys, in the tone of a martyr relinquishing all earthly joys. “If I can’t stay here there is no use in my loving Evenfall Hall. And if I go out there and get acquainted with all those trees and flowers I saw in the godswood and the little brook in your spring garden and all the little crooked stone walls surrounding the keep, I’ll not be able to help loving it. It’s hard enough now, so I won’t make it any harder. I want to go out so much. Everything seems to be calling to me, ‘Alys, Alys, come out to us. Alys, Alys, we want a playmate’ -but it’s better not to do it. There is no use in loving things if you have to be torn from them, is there? And it’s so hard to keep from loving things, isn’t it? That was why I was so glad when I thought I was going to live here. I thought I’d have so many things to love and nothing to hinder me. But that brief dream is over. I am resigned to my fate now, so I don’t think I’ll go out for fear I’ll get hopeful again. What is the name of that horse I rode?”

“It was a palfrey.”

“No, I don’t mean that sort of a name. I mean just a name you gave it yourself. Didn’t you give it a name? May I give it one then? May I call it-let me see-Sooty would do-may I call it Sooty while I’m here? Oh, do let me!”

“By the Seven, I don’t care. But where is the sense in naming a horse you will never see again?” Brienne had ceased to give her horses names sometime in the last five years when it had hurt too much to lose them to battle or famine again and again.

“I like for animals to have names, even if I only meet them once. How do you know it doesn’t hurt a horse’s feelings to be called Horse every time and nothing else? You wouldn’t like to be called Woman all the time. Yes, I shall call her Sooty. I named the sea rock under my chambers Widow’s Point this morning. I call it Widow’s Point because it looks so jagged and horrible that I bet a thousand thousand ships have crashed against it.”

“I have never met a more talkative child,” muttered Brienne as she beat a calculated retreat to the armory on the pretense of inspecting new weapons. “She is interesting as Podrick says. I can feel already that I’m wondering what she’ll say next. She’ll be casting a spell over me next. She’s already cast it over Podrick. That look he gave me when he went out to the practice yard said everything he said or hinted last night all over again. I wish he was like other men and would talk things out. Then I could answer and argue him into reason. But what’s to be done with a man that just looks, or when he does open his mouth, he stammers so that not a word makes sense.”

Alys had relapsed into reverie, with her chin in her hands and her eyes on the sky, when Brienne returned to her study. Finding the waif still underfoot, Lady Brienne left again and didn’t come to find her until dinner was set on the table. The entire meal was uncomfortable with the dreamy silence from Alys and the reproachful silence from Podrick.

“I’m going to the maester’s to send a letter to Highgarden so we may settle this thing. I’ll take Alys with me.”

Still Podrick said nothing and Brienne had a sense of having wasted words and breath. There is nothing more aggravating than a man who won’t talk back. Jaime Lannister had never had that problem.

Podrick followed them through the great hall, and then as he passed through a door leading towards the staff quarters, he spoke to no one in particular: “I sent a raven to Bronzegate this morning, asking Lord Ralph if young Jasper would like to squire up at Evenfall Hall.”

Brienne made no reply, but she wrenched the door leading to the maester’s tower so hard, the hinges groaned. She looked back once and saw that aggravating Podrick leaning against the door jamb looking wistfully after them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here is the view](http://daemonmeg.tumblr.com/post/98140121833/reference) Alys sees when she looks down through her garderobe.


	5. Alys' History

“Do you know,” Alys said confidentially, “I’ve made up my mind to like your maester. It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind _firmly_ that you will. Of course, you must make it up firmly. I am not going to think about going back to the Rose while we’re meeting with the maester. I’m just going to think about his tower and how wonderful Evenfall Hall is. Don’t you think there must be many ghosts in this tower? Wouldn’t it be nice if the ghosts could talk to you and tell you all the stories of the happenings in your family’s hall? I’m sure they could tell us such lovely things. They would tell us of old feasts and visiting minstrels and how the island has changed. Maybe some would tell me stories of what you were like as a little girl.”

“I was never a little girl,” Brienne grimaced at the memory of her childhood. “I was the biggest, ungainly girl there ever was.”

“Oh please! Please Lady Brienne will you tell me about yourself when you were little?” Alys pleaded as they climbed the spiral stair up to the maester’s chambers.

“As there will be some time to wait before we have an answer from Highgarden, you may as well tell me about yourself.”

“What I know about myself isn’t worth telling,” the girl said, looking down at the stone steps. “Can I just tell you what I imagine for myself?”

“I’ll have none of your stories now. Just tell me the truth of your history. Begin at the beginning. Where were you born and how old are you?”

“I was eleven not three months ago,” said Alys, resigning her herself to bald facts with a little sigh. “And I was born in the Red Mountains near High Hill. My father was a hedge night and my mother was a whore.”

“It doesn’t matter who a person’s parents are as long as they are honorable,” said Brienne, feeling called upon to say something comforting.

“Well, my mother wasn’t always a whore. My grandparents turned her out when her belly swelled and the Secret Rose took her in. I never seen my mother’s folk and she never spoke about them. I’ve imagined it thousands of times. I think it must have had trumpet vine climbing the eaves and two little brown goats that scampered in the well yard. I like to pretend I was born in that house. Mistress Tansy said I was the homliest baby she ever saw, all scrawny and like to wail, and that Mother was disappointed I didn’t have her blue eyes and yellow hair. There’s some that said I took my father’s coloring, but I never saw him. She died of fever during the Winter ended and she didn’t get to see Spring come back into the world. I helped to look after the whore’s bastards since the time I was old enough to change a baby’s flannel. There were ever so many children, but most never lived out the year. It was so cold and food was scarce these past years, even though I know it was much much worse up North. There was a miller’s wife who took me for a few weeks to help with her two sets of twins, but her husband liked me too much, you see, and back I went to the Rose. I’m sure glad that I went back to the brothel for the miller liked to drink and he would be so angry sometimes. The Rose set me to the washing and the cleaning and Mistress Tansy said next year I could start earning my keep for serious. You see, nobody wanted me except for what I could get for them.”

Brienne didn’t know what else to say, so she quietly asked, “Do you know your letters? Can you read and do sums?”

“Oh! I would so love to read. I can do sums though, enough to count eggs in a coop or measure out flour for baking. But to read! If I knew to read, I could perhaps do more than work at the Secret Rose. There was a maester who would come in to the Rose sometime. His favorite girl was Myrtle, but if she was busy he would visit Hazel and tell us stories, but he never taught us letters. I always loved the stories about the queens of the past, like Nymeria and Rhaenys. Don’t you just love the stories about the beautiful princesses and lady warriors? It’s so romantic.”

Brienne knew the stories she spoke of. Usually they ended with a handsome, true knight sweeping in and saving the noble princess. Those were her favorites when she was a girl too, but she’d learned a hard lesson that there were no true knights, only broken men trying their best.

“Were those women, Mistress Tansy, Myrtle, Hazel, and the miller’s wife _good_ to you?” asked Brienne, looking at Alys out of the corner of her eye.

“O-o-o-oh,” Alys faltered. Her sensitive little face suddenly flushed scarlet and embarrassment sat on her brow. “Oh, I’m sure they meant to be. I know they meant to be just as good and kind as possible. And when people mean to be good to you, you don’t mind very much when they’re not always. They had plenty to deal with on their own. It must be trying to have drunken men in at you every evening, or have two sets of twins, or trade your flesh for a bit of food and a blanket. Times were very hard the last five years. But I feel sure they meant to be good to me.”

Brienne asked no more questions. What a starved, unloved life she had had, a life of drudgery and poverty and neglect; for Brienne was shrewd enough to read between the lines of Alys’ history and divine the truth. No wonder she had been so delighted at the prospect of a real home. It was a pity she had to be sent away. What if she, Brienne, should indulge Podrick’s unaccountable whim and let her stay? He was set on it, and the child seemed a nice, teachable little thing. It was unfortunate that Tarth had become such a martial outpost in recent years, as she recalled it had been a pleasant place for a child when she was young.

“She’s got too much to say,” thought Brienne, “but she might be trained out of that, as Septa Roelle had done with me. And there’s nothing rude in what she does say.”

Alys gave herself up to a silent rapture as they emerged on the final landing and entered the maester’s tower. The curved room was lined with shelves from floor to ceiling. Most contained books, some of leather binding, some with pages of vellum tied together between thin wooden covers, and still older books were stacked in cubbies in neat little scrolls. Tables were scattered through the room with odd bits like scrying bowls, ink pots, canisters with preserved creatures, and carelessly strewn maps.

“Isn’t this wonderful?” Alys said, rousing from a silence as her eyes darted about the round room. “Once, I went into the market in High Hill and there was a stall very much like this room. There were all sorts of jumbly bits in the crates for sale: toys, and books, and blacksmith puzzles-all manner of odd things. I enjoyed every moment of that day, even if I didn’t have the coin to buy anything myself, and imagined oh so many trinkets that were my very own after that trip. I lived in that dream over and over for many years afterwards. But this room is much nicer than that market stall.”

The child was wandering around the maester’s room picking up every odd bit lying around loose. She held up a blue glass bottle with tiny buildings trapped within. “Oh Lady Brienne, isn’t this a lovely bit of magic? I don’t know really what it does, but I can pretend it is a cursed bauble with a whole kingdom living inside of it.”

The maester walked in at that moment.  Once he spotted her, he waved a scroll in the air in her direction.  “Lady Brienne, we’ve had a raven from the Citadel. Apparently, there’s been a change in plans.”


	6. Brienne Makes Up Her Mind

Maester Flint was an island native. He’d spent close to seventeen years at the Citadel before returning to Tarth to serve old Lord Selwyn when Septa Roelle was set aside. He had copper colored hair and a ruddy complexion, as well as freckles that rivaled Lady Brienne’s in number. His chain collar boasted of links of black iron, bronze, copper, yellow gold, three links of iron, two links of silver, and one of pale steel. A raven rode upon his shoulder, and a pale white streak marred the black fabric of his robe beneath its talons.

He waved the tiny scroll tube at Lady Brienne again and proceeded to the map table, pushing odd bits out of the way. It was only then when he noticed Alys standing behind Brienne, the glass object held up to the light. The maester sucked air through his teeth and at the same time, the bird began flapping violently. In response, Alys put the bauble back into place in slow motion and stepped carefully backward from the table. Still shaking his head at the curious child, he started to explain to Brienne the origin of the scroll. “I humbly apologize, Lady Brienne. When I saw the seal of the Citadel, I naturally assumed it was correspondence from one of my fellow maesters. I was surprised to discover instead that it was a message for you from one of nobles of the Reach. Apparently, she hired the Citadel to send it for her from Oldtown. I meant no offense in opening it first, I assure you.”

Brienne made the customary assurances for her oft-times preoccupied maester and bid him to unroll the message. The delicate and florid script was difficult for her to read, so she stepped closer and squinted. Flint slid a viewing stone across the table and suddenly the words snapped into focus for her.

 

> _Dearest Brienne,_
> 
> _I hope this letter finds you well. I want to inform you of a recent change in plans. A knight formerly sworn to my dear late husband Renly contacted me for help regarding his natural daughter Alys. Apparently, the poor girl's mother had succumbed to fever and the child was eking out a living in a house of ill repute. To speak plainly, it was a brothel even I would disdain. When I sent my agent to inquire, the owner of the establishment let slip plans to turn the girl to the trade to earn her keep before the next moon turned. So we made off with the girl after a steep price was set. The woman, a Mistress Tansy, had planned to auction off the waif's maidenhead and demanded remuneration for the loss of her. I hope you are not too dearly put off by this. I had assurances from the girl's father that you were acquainted. Ser Hyle Hunt is his name. He was one of Lord Tarly’s captains in Renly's camp. I recall he was one of your regular sparring partners. Ser Hyle spoke at length about your soft woman's heart and that you would not be able to resist helping the poor girl once made aware of her situation. He bid me send the child to you, as he is not yet landed and has not a place to care for her. Hunt has set his mark to a contract guaranteeing a stipend for her care. Arrangements will be made through one of the Tyrell agents. I cannot stay in Tarth, as the ship is on a schedule to White Harbor, where I treat with Lady Sansa. I hope this raven reaches you in time, as I embark from Oldtown even as I write this. May the Mother watch over you._
> 
> _Your dear friend, Lady Margaery_

Alys turned wondering eyes on Brienne and whispered, “He wanted me? My father-Ser Hyle Hunt…I’d never heard my ma say his name before and Mistress Tansy never let him in. Oh, isn’t it grand that he wanted me?”

"So it would seem there's been a mistake about the child, Lady Brienne," Master Flint interjected. "I was under the impression that there would be a young master about Evenfall Hall to be 'prenticed to Pod and sit at lessons with me. I was certainly told so. So if you're still of the same mind about seeking a pageboy, I can draft up a new letter today and find alternate arrangements for the child."

Brienne looked at Alys and softened at the sight of the child's pale face with its look of mute misery-the misery of a helpless little creature who finds itself once more caught in the trap from which it had escaped. Brienne felt and uncomfortable conviction that, if she denied the appeal of that look, it would haunt her to her dying day. More-over, she did not fancy sending Alys back to the Secret Rose. To hand a sensitive, "highstrung" child over to such a disreputable place! If it had been a pleasure house of Dorne or the Summer Islands, it would be one thing, but not in the Reach. No, she could not take the responsibility of doing that.

"Well, I don't know," she said slowly. "I didn't say that Podrick and I had absolutely decided that we wouldn't keep her. In fact I may say that Podrick is disposed to keep her. I just wanted to find out how the mistake had occurred. The raven from the Citadel could have perhaps arrived a day sooner, don’t you think? I believe we'd better keep her until we have a chance to discuss things with her father. I feel that it is only fair that Ser Hyle be consulted before we do anything with her. As for now, I believe Pod has been in touch with Bronzegate regarding one of their boys. If anything changes, you'll be the first to know, Maester Flint."

During Brienne's speech a sunrise had been dawning on Alys' face. First the look of despair faded out; then came a faint flush of hope; her hazel eyes glowed golden with emotion. The child was quite transfigured; and, a moment later when Maester Flint excused himself in search of some morsel for his raven, which he'd named Shard, she sprang up and flew across the room to Brienne.

"Oh, Lady Brienne, did you really say that perhaps you would let me stay at Evenfall Hall?" she asked in a breathless whisper, as if speaking aloud might shatter the glorious possibility. "Did you really say it? Or did I only imagine that you did?"

"I think you'd better learn to control that imagination of yours, Alys, if you can't distinguish between what is real and what isn't," said Brienne crossly. "Yes, you did hear me say just that and no more. It isn't decided yet and perhaps we will conclude to ship you off to your good-for-nothing father after all. He certainly deserves it for all the inconveniences he's caused me over the years."

"I'd rather go to my father than go back to live at the brothel," said Alys decisively. "Isn't it glorious that he wants me? Oh, it's like the dream I always had of him coming to rescue me, but he sent me to you instead."

Brienne, still uncomfortable with the decision she'd made, didn't know how to react to the little girl. "Now hold your tongue as we go back downstairs. Behave as a good child and stay quiet."

"I'll try to do and be anything you want me, if you'll only keep me," said Alys, silently slipping her hand in Brienne's.

Brienne just pressed her lips together and led her young charge back down the spiral stair to the great hall. It was the dampness of the keep that made her sniffle, she was sure.

When Podrick arrived back from arms practice with their men-at-arms, he met Brienne in the inner bailey. She had noted from afar the way the quiet young man prowled about and craned his head, and she easily guessed his motive. She was prepared for the relief she read in his face when he saw Alys playing merrily in the kitchen garden and that the girl seemed in high spirits. But she said nothing to him, relative to the affair, until they were both out of Alys' earshot in the stables under the pretense of checking tack. Then she briefly told him of Alys' history and the contents of Lady Margaery's letter.

"Hyle Hunt’s natural daughter…didn't he say once he'd never afflict you with her?  It doesn't matter.  I wouldn't give a dog I liked to live in a brothel. I've seen the inside of plenty during my time as Tyrion's squire," said Podrick with unusual anger.

"I don't agree with it either, at least not raising a child in a _Westerosi_ pleasure house," admitted Brienne, "but it's that or keeping her ourselves until Hyle can collect his girl. And since you seem to want her to stay, I suppose I'm willing. I've been thinking it over and I've gotten used to the idea of it. It's seems the honorable thing to do, as Ser Hyle is still a hedge knight with no place to settle Alys. I've never brought up a child, and my brother and sisters died when I was small, and I dare say I'll make a terrible mess of it. But I'll do my best. So far as I'm concerned, Podrick, she may stay."

Podrick's shy face was a glow of delight. "I knew you'd come to see that it was the only right thing to do, Ser," he said. "She's so innocent. And when I see her I see the faces of all those little children at the crossroads...and besides, you have brought up a child before. I wasn't much older when you took charge of me."

Flustered, Brienne said quickly, "I'd rather you say she could be useful around here, but I'll make it my business to see that she's trained as I was and knows what it is to be a proper lady as Septa Roelle always wished for me. I'll not have Hyle Hunt say I didn't do right by his kin. Now you leave her to me, Podrick Payne, because you’d like to spoil her I know by the look in your eyes.”

“Yes, Ser,” he readily agreed. “But I think she’s one of the sorts you can do anything with if you only get her to love you. I’ve seen the same look in hounds.”

Brienne sniffed to express her contempt for Podrick’s opinions concerning childrearing and stalked off from the stables alone.

“Brienne Tarth, you’re in for it,” she reflected, as she marched up the stairs to her study. “Did you ever suppose you’d see the day when you’d be fostering a girl? You’d given up on marriage and motherhood long ago-ever since Bitterbridge. It’s surprising enough; but not so surprising as that Podrick should be at the bottom of it, him that always seemed to have such a mortal dread of talking with girls. Anyhow, we’ve decided on the experiment until Hyle can collect her and the Mother only knows what will come of it.”


	7. Alys Says Her Prayers

Brienne began to feel stir crazy as she attended to the paperwork on her desk. The light was too dim. The braziers flickered too much. The hearth was cold. The water tasted stagnant. The gulls pecked relentlessly at the leaded windows. So the Maid of Tarth stopped delaying the inevitable and briskly descended to collect her new charge.

The two walked through the outer curtain walls and down the path towards the sept. Now, elsewhere in Westeros, septs were great seven-sided buildings. Here on Tarth, however, the storms were strong off of the Narrow Sea, meaning most construction avoided straight walls, and so the island sept was a squat round building with a low door and seven round windows with leaded glass in the colors of the rainbow-a holdover from the days of the Warrior’s Sons.

Alys trotted at her side, listing the endless variety of herbs she’d tasted in the gardens, but pulled up short once she spotted where Brienne led her. Even without its seven sides, there was no mistaking a sept.

“I can’t go in there,” she insisted, pulling back from the entrance. “Bastards aren’t allowed in septs-neither are whores, and I might as well be one since I was raised in a brothel.”

Brienne looked horrified in astonishment, peered into Alys eyes, hazel now gone to green with unshed tears, and clucked her tongue in disapproval. “Might as well be a whore? Who put such thoughts into your head?”

Alys kept her face down, digging the toe of one shoe into the dirt. “I don’t know as I can say, my lady.”

“Well, if you’ve never been in a sept before, do you know of the Faith?” Meribald had told Brienne of the wandering septons that ministered to the smallfolk of the countryside. Perhaps one had tended to the women of the Secret Rose.

“ _The Maid brought him forth a girl as supple as a willow with eyes like deep blue pools and Hugor declared that he would have her for his bride. So the Mother made her fertile, and the Crone foretold that she would bear the king four-and-forty mighty sons_ ,” Alys recited by rote.

Brienne looked rather relieved. “So you do know something then, thank the Seven. You’re not quite a heathen. Where did you learn that?”

“Oh, there was a septon who used to come to visit the whores. If they were busy, the septon would sit in the common room and tell us stories from the Seven-Pointed Star. The words are beautiful, but don’t you think it sounds a lot like a dream?”

Brienne suddenly discovered she was angry, whether at the lecherous septon of Alys’ past or at the cruel person who led Alys to believe herself no better than a whore she could not say. She decided that Alys’ religious training must be begun at once and no time was to be lost.

“While you continue to live at Evenfall with me, you will learn to practice the Faith. I would not have your father say I neglected your education.” There. She’d found a perfectly respectful reason to take Alys’ education in hand-as a duty to Ser Hyle.

“Why, of course, if you want me to,” Alys said reluctantly. She glared at the entry door of the sept as though wights and dragons dwelt within. “But why must people pray _inside_ the septs? If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d go out into a great big field of heather all alone or into the deep coolness of that valley with the waterfall and the sparkly mist. Or maybe I’d walk down at the water line on Tarth’s beach and I’d look out into the lovely deep blue sea that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I’d just _feel_ a prayer.”

Brienne just sniffed at the girl’s ramblings. She sounded just like a Northman with their worship of their weirwoods. “Perhaps your father would have done better to send you to Winterfell and let you pray to their trees with the bleeding faces.”

“No. You’re right. I’ll go in, my Lady. I believe that it will be interesting to pray in a sept, now that I come to think of it. Well, I’m ready,” said Alys, and she squared her narrow little shoulders like a knight headed off into the fray. “You’ll need to tell me what I am to say and how to stand, if you please.”

The two ventured into the darkness of the little squat building. Septa Roelle had been after Lord Selwyn for years to outfit it properly, but the Evenstar had ever put her off and so the building remained sparsely furnished for such a noble house. There was no septon on Tarth, not for years, and when Brienne no longer was in need of a governess, Roelle had taken over ministering the Faith to those on the island who wished to worship. Some few chose to volunteer their time as well, helping to keep braziers lit or donating an afternoon to clean the sept. This afternoon, they found the building empty, much to Brienne’s relief.

In place of the normal stone statues or intricate paintings found in normal septs, the Seven were carved into immense driftwood trunks that had been tossed to the stony beaches of the island years ago. The people of Tarth had made it their own, as islanders were wont to do. The seasoned wood carvings were painted, and some few precious stones were inlaid in places on the figures. Six of them had the gnarled trunks and branches typical of trees that strain to grown against the constant buffet of sea winds. Some visionary beachcomber of the past had looked at the flotsam and been able to see the forms within. The Maid was a tall, lithe branch of willow, the Mother was a grayed-out trunk with a large bole on one side resembling nothing so much as the swollen belly of a pregnant woman, and so forth. The Stranger, however, did not look like a human figure at all. A massive root ball, perverted into the most twisted maze, looked like one of the malevolent whirlpools that appeared off the coast from time to time.

“ _…supple as a willow with eyes like deep blue pools…_ ” Alys commented when she caught sight of the sapphire gems laid in the Maid’s face. “You have eyes like deep pools, Lady Brienne. Will you have forty four sons like the Maid?”

Brienne almost choked when she heard the question. “No, Alys, I think not.”

She led Alys to the center of the room where altar candles were set out for the faithful near a brazier. She set one in Alys’ hand and gathered two for herself. With a hand on the girls’ thin back, she guided her charge to the altar of the Maid.

“You’re old enough to pray for yourself, Alys,” she said finally. “Just thank the Maid for your blessings and ask humbly for the things you want.”

“Well, I’ll do my best,” promised Alys, and she set her lit offering on the bronze dish at the Maid’s feet. “Ever-virtuous Maid-that’s what the septon at the Rose called her, so I suppose it’s all right in the sept, isn’t it?” she interjected, lifting her eyes to Brienne’s for a moment.

 

> _“Ever-virtuous Maid, I thank you for Widow’s Point under my garderobe, Sooty the Horse, and the letter from the Lady Margaery. I really am very grateful to know that my father wanted me all this time and rescued me from the Secret Rose. I’m really extremely grateful for that. And that’s all the blessings I can think of just now to thank you for. As for the things I want, they’re so numerous that it would take a great deal of time to name them all so I will only mention the two most important. Please let me stay at Evenfall Hall with Lady Brienne so I can grow up to be a lady just like her and please let me meet my father. Ever thankful, Alys Flowers.”_

“There, did I do all right?” she asked eagerly, brushing off her knees as she got up from the altar. “I could have made it much more flowery if I’d had a little more time to think it over.”

Poor Brienne was only spared from complete collapse by her determination to pay homage to the altars of the Mother and the Crone, seeking compassion and wisdom in her new endeavor to foster Alys. Belatedly, she realized that it was not due to irreverence but to ignorance on the part of Alys that that was responsible for this extraordinary petition. She finished her short vigils, leaving candles before both figures, and collected the girl. She had to admit it to herself, though, that she was touched by the girl’s wish to grow up to be like her.

“I’ve just thought of it now. I should have prayed silently instead of aloud. All the people in the songs make silent vigils. I’d forgotten it, but I prayed ever so hard. Do you think it will make any difference that I said it aloud?”

“I-I don’t suppose it will,” said Brienne as she ducked her head to avoid the lintel as they left.

That evening after Alys had gone off to bed, Brienne retreated back to the kitchens where her squire was sipping on ale. She set her candle firmly on the table and glared at him.

“Podrick Payne, it’s about time somebody fostered that child and taught her something good in this world. She’s next door to being a perfect wildling. Will you believe she never said a prayer in her life till this afternoon? I’ll send her to Roelle’s tomorrow and I’ll borrow a copy of The Seven-Pointed Star. And she shall go to the maester for regular education just as soon as I can get some suitable clothes made for her. I predict that I will have my hands full. Well, well, we can’t get through this world without our share of trouble. We both know that. Neither of us has had an easy time of it, but I think the time ahead will be worse than anything either of us saw during the war. I suppose I’ll just have to make the best of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the carved driftwood representations of the Seven, I was really inspired by all those photo sets of trees that look like people. It made me think of how island residents normally re-purpose a lot of what washes up on shore. [Here's a photo](http://daemonmeg.tumblr.com/post/98725006703/this-photo-was-used-for-reference-in-chapter-7-of) that made me think of the Maid.


	8. Septa Roelle is Properly Horrified

Alys had been a fortnight at Evenfall Hall before Septa Roelle arrived to inspect her. Roelle, to do her justice, was not to blame for this. A severe and unreasonable attack of redspots had confined that good lady to her house ever since the occasion of her last visit to Evenfall Hall. Roelle was not often sick and had a well-defined contempt for people who were; but redspots in an adult, she asserted, was like no other illness and could only be interpreted as one of the special visitations of the Crone to give time to her followers for reflection. As soon as Maester Flint allowed her to put her foot out-of-doors she hurried up to Evenfall Hall, bursting with curiosity to see Brienne and Podrick’s new foster, concerning whom all sorts of stories and suppositions had gone abroad on Tarth.

Alys had made good use of every waking moment of that fortnight. Already she was acquainted with every tree in the bailey. She had discovered that a portion of the northern curtain wall had a tumbled down section just wide enough for a little girl to pass through; and she had explored past it and some low lying shrubs up through a belt of woodland; and she had explored it to its furthest end in all its delicious vagaries of windswept cliffs and mossy limestone burrens, stunted bushes and struggling cherry trees, blue gentians and delicate white avens peeking out through the grikes.

She had made friends with every horse in the stable and the burbling spring that rose from the inner bailey-that wonderful deep, clear icy-cold spring; it ran swift and joyfully through an old iron grate in the wall before winding over the rocky limestone of the island and tumbling hundreds of feet in mist shrouded valleys; and beyond it fell in a well ordered channel of ashlars on its way past Lowtown and to pouring into the harbor. That rocky path that criss-crossed the happy stream led Alys’ dancing feet up over a wooded hill beyond, where perpetual twilight reigned under the straight, thick-growing wych elms and alders; the only flowers there were early orchids and sea kale, those entrepreneurial little plants that rose up in the cracks of limestone pavement, and a few pale branches of wild cherry that seemed so abundant on the island.

All these raptured voyages of exploration were made in the odd half hours which she was allowed for play, and Alys talked Brienne and Podrick, as well as the scullery maids, half-deaf over her discoveries. Not that Podrick complained, to be sure; he listened to it all with a wordless smile of enjoyment on his face; Brienne permitted the “chatter” until she found herself becoming too interested in it, whereupon she always promptly quenched Alys by a curt command to hold her tongue.

Alys was out in the stables, hounding the stable boys with a thousand questions and suppositions, imagining deep inner lives for the myriad horses kept there; so that the good lady had an excellent chance to talk her illness fully over, describing every ache and pulse beat with such evident enjoyment that Brienne thought even redspots must bring its compensations. When details were exhausted Septa Roelle introduced the real reason of her call.

“I’ve been hearing some surprising things about you and Podrick.”

“I don’t suppose you are any more surprised than I am myself,” said Brienne. “I’m getting over my surprise now.”

“It was too bad there was such a mistake,” said Septa Roelle sympathetically. “Couldn’t you have sent her back?”

“I could have, but I decided not to. Podrick took a fancy to her and I couldn’t bear to think of sending a child back to that brothel. I admit she has her faults, but I must say I like her myself. The keep seems a different place already. She’s a real bright little thing, something no one has seen much of the past few years. I’ll be sorry when her father comes to collect her.”

Brienne said more than she had intended to say when she began, for she read disapproval in Roelle’s expression.

“It’s a great responsibility you’ve taken on yourself,” said the septa gloomily, “especially when you’ve never had any experience with children. You don’t know much about how to bring up a proper lady nor the type of woman who bred her, so there’s no guessing how a child like that will turn out. But I don’t want to discourage you I’m sure, Brienne.”

“I’m not feeling discouraged,” was Brienne’s dry response, “when I make up my mind to do a thing it stays made up. You, more than anyone, should know that. I suppose you’d like to see Alys. I’ll call her in.”

Alys came running in presently, her face sparkling with the delight of her bailey rovings; but, abashed at finding herself in the unexpected presence of a stranger, she halted confusedly inside the door to Brienne’s study. She certainly was an odd-looking little creature in the short yellowed wool dress she had worn from the mainland, below which her thin legs seemed ungracefully long. Her hair had faded in the island sun to an ash brown, the wind had ruffled it into over-brilliant disorder; it had never looked more like a rat’s nest than at that moment.

“Well, she isn’t much in the way of looks, that’s for sure and certain,” was Septa Roelle’s emphatic comment. Roelle was one of those delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their mind without fear or favor, taking advantage of her position of septa. “She’s terribly skinny and homely, Brienne, though nothing like you at her age. By the Maiden, did anyone ever see such an unhealthy child? Come here, girl.”

Alys ‘came there’, but not exactly as Septa Roelle expected. With one bound she crossed the study floor and stood before Roelle, her face scarlet with anger, her lips quivering, and her whole slender form trembling from head to foot.

“I hate you,” she cried in a choked voice, stamping her foot on the floor. “I hate you-I hate you-I hate you-” a louder stamp with each assertion of hatred. “How dare you call me skinny and homely? How dare you say I’m unhealthy? You are a rude, impolite, unfeeling woman!”

“Alys!” exclaimed Brienne in consternation.

But Alys continued to face Septa Roelle undauntedly, head up, eyes blazing, hands clenched, passionate indignation exhaling from her like dragon’s smoke.

“How dare you say such things about me?” she repeated vehemently. “How would you like to have such things said about you? How would you like to be told that you are fat and clumsy and probably not holy at all? I don’t care if I do hurt your feelings by saying so! I hope I hurt them. You have hurt mine worse than they were ever hurt by Tansy or any of those drunk men in the Rose. And I’ll NEVER forgive you for it, never, never!”

Stamp! Stamp!

“Did anybody ever see such a temper!” exclaimed the horrified Septa Roelle.

“Alys go to your room and stay there until I come up,” said Brienne, recovering her powers of speech with difficulty.

Alys, bursting into tears, rushed to the door, slammed it until the brazier shook on its stand in sympathy, and fled through the hall like a whirlwind until she reached the south bedchamber. A subdued slam from down the corridor told the two women that the girl’s bedroom door had been shut with equal vehemence.

“Well, I don’t envy you your job bringing that up, Brienne,” said Septa Roelle with unspeakable solemnity.

Brienne opened her mouth to say she knew not what of apology or deprecation. What she did say was a surprise to herself then and ever afterwards.

“You shouldn’t have insulted her looks, Roelle.”

“Brienne Tarth, you don’t mean to say that you are upholding her in such a terrible display of tempter as we’ve just seen?” demanded the septa indignantly.

“No,” said Brienne slowly, “I’m not trying to excuse her. She’s misbehaved and I’ll have to take her to task. But you were too hard on her…You have no idea, do you? How an unkind word will follow a child for years, staining their every moment.”

“Well, I see that I’ll have to be very careful what I say after this, Brienne, since the fine feelings of bastards, brought from the depths of depravity, have to be considered before anything else. Oh, no, I’m not angry-don’t you go worrying yourself. I’m too sorry for you to leave any room for anger in my mind. You’ll have your own troubles with that child. But if you’ll take my advice-which I suppose you won’t do, although I brought you up myself-you’ll take her to task with a fair-sized birch switch. I should think that would be the most effective language for that kind of a child. Her temper matches her bloodlines I guess. There’s no mistaking she was born on the wrong side of the sheets. Well, good evening, Brienne. I hope you’ll come down to see me often as usual. But you can’t expect me to visit here again in a hurry if I’m liable to be flown at and insulted in such a fashion. It’s something new in _my_ experience.”

And with that, Septa Roelle swept out and away from Lady Brienne’s study-if an arthritic woman in robes who always waddled could be said to sweep away-and Brienne with a very solemn face took herself to the south bedchamber.

On the way down the hall she pondered uneasily as to what she ought to do. She felt no little dismay over the scene that had just been enacted. How unfortunate that Alys should have displayed such a temper before Septa Roelle, of all people! Then Brienne suddenly became aware of an uncomfortable and rebuking consciousness that she felt more sympathy for the child over this than sorry over the discovery of such a serious defect in Alys’ disposition. And how was she to punish her? The amiable suggestion of the birch switch-to the efficiency of which Brienne herself could bear smarting testimony-did not appeal to her. She did not believe she could ever whip a child. No, some other method of punishment must be found to bring Alys to a proper realization of the enormity of her offense.

Brienne found Alys face downward on her bed, crying bitterly, quite oblivious of muddy boots on the clean coverlet.

“Alys,” she murmured.

No answer.

“Alys,” with greater severity, “get off that bed this minute and listen to what I have to say to you.”

Alys squirmed off the bed and sat rigidly on a chair beside it, her face swollen and tear-stained and her eyes fixed stubbornly on the floor.

“This is a nice way for you to behave. Alys! Are you ashamed of yourself?”

“She hadn’t any right to call me ugly and unhealthy,” retorted Alys, evasive and defiant.

“You hadn’t any right to fly into such a fury and talk the way you did you her, Alys. I was ashamed of you, thoroughly ashamed of you. I wanted you to behave nicely to Septa Roelle, the woman who reared me, and instead of that you have disgraced me and my house. I’m sure I don’t know why you should lose your temper like that just because Septa Roelle said you were homely. _You_ say it often enough.”

“Oh, but there’s such a difference between saying a thing yourself and hearing other people say it,” wailed Alys. “You may know a thing is so, but you can’t help hoping other people don’t quite think it is. I suppose you think I have an awful temper, but I couldn’t help it. When she said those things something just rose right up in me and choked me. I had to fly out at her.”

“Well, you made a fine exhibition of yourself I must say. Septa Roelle will have a nice story to tell about you everywhere-and she’ll tell it, too. It was a dreadful thing for you to lose your temper like that, Alys.”

“Just imagine how you would feel if somebody told you to your face that you were ugly,” pleaded Alys tearfully.

The memories of all the snide remarks and cutting insults suddenly reared up before Brienne. She had still been a very small child when she had first heard her septa tell one of the servants what a homely little thing she was. Brienne was every day of twenty-five and the sting had still not gone out of those memories. She lifted a hand to cover the scarring on her cheek and struggled to keep her composure.

“I don’t say that I think Septa Roelle was exactly right in saying what she did to you, Alys,” she admitted in a softer tone. “Roelle is too outspoken. But that is no excuse for such behavior on your part. She was my visitor and elderly person and a septa-all three very good reasons why you should have been respectful to her. You were rude and crudish and”-Brienne had a saving inspiration of punishment-“you must go to her and tell her you are very sorry for your bad temper and ask her to forgive you.”

“I can never do that,” said Alys determinedly and darkly. “You can punish me in any way you like, my lady. You can shut me up in a dark, damp dungeon inhabited by snakes and toads and feed me only on bread and water and I shall not complain. But I cannot ask Septa Roelle to forgive me.”

“We’re not in the habit of shutting people up in dark damp dungeons with snakes,” said Brienne drily, “especially since there are no snakes on Tarth and we just throw our enemies from the cliffs anyway. But apologize to Septa Roelle you must and shall and you’ll stay here in your room until you can tell me you’re willing to do it.”

“I shall have to stay here forever then,” said Alys mournfully, “because I can’t tell Septa Roelle I’m sorry I said those things to her. How can I? I’m not sorry. I’m sorry I’ve made you angry, but I’m glad I told her just what I did. It was greatly satisfying. I can’t say I’m sorry when I’m not, can I? I can’t even imagine I’m sorry.”

“Perhaps your imagination will be in better working order by the morning,” said Brienne, rising to depart. “You’ll have the night to think over your conduct and come to a better frame of mind. You said you would try to be a very good girl if we kept you at Evenfall Hall, but I must say it hasn’t seemed very much like it this evening.”

Leaving this arrow to fester in Alys’ heart, Brienne descended to the kitchens, grievously troubled in mind and soul. She was as angry with herself as with Alys, because, whenever she recalled Septa Roelle’s dumbfounded countenance, her lips twitched with amusement and she felt a most reprehensible envy of Alys for finally telling off Roelle for her abysmal treatment of children. She wished she’d had the courage to speak her mind to the septa when she had been a girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I do hope you like Septa Roelle's characterization as Mrs. Rachel Lynde from Anne of Green Gables. Roelle, more than anything, is what prompted me to continue with this fusion.


	9. Alys' Apology

Brienne said nothing to Podrick about the affair that evening; but when Alys proved still stubborn the next morning an explanation had to be made to account for her absence from the kitchens. Brienne told Podrick the whole story, taking pains to impress him with a due sense of the enormity of Alys’ behavior.

“It’s a good thing Septa Roelle got a calling down; she’s a meddlesome old gossip,” was the unlooked for comment from the cook.

“Sara, I’m astonished at you. You know that Alys’ behavior was dreadful, and yet you take her part! I suppose you’ll be saying next thing that she shouldn’t be punished at all!”

“Well, now, no. Not exactly,” said Sara. “I reckon she ought to be punished a little. But don’t ye be too hard on her m’lady. Many’s the time I said to your lord father that the septa shouldna be on you girls so much about appearances. The way that woman took a hand to you…there’s not a woman in Evenfall that didna want to take that horrid woman to task for the way you were mistreated. It was a dishonor to your mother. That’s what.”

Brienne open and shut her mouth a few moments, unable to think of a response to Sara’s remarks about her upbringing.

“You’re-you’re going to give her something to eat, aren’t you?” queried Sara. Since Alys had arrived at the keep, the kitchen staff had made it their lives’ purpose to stuff the child with every morsel from the pantries until she took on a more healthful glow.

“When did you ever hear of me starving people into good behavior?” demanded Brienne indignantly. Thinking on her own past made her tone more curt than usual. “She’ll have her meals regular, and I’ll carry them up to her myself. If I leave it to you, you’ll be burying her in lemoncakes and sweetrolls.”

“Well, you didna seem to mind when I sent them to ye when you was her age,” Sara reminded her smartly. As she rounded the trestle table, she thwacked Lady Brienne on the back of her shoulder with a wooden spoon.

Brienne snorted quietly at the recollection. “But she’ll stay up there all the same until she’s willing to apologize to Septa Roelle, and that’s final, Sara. I’ll brook no interference-nor from you, Pod,” she added, swinging her glare to her squire as he shoveled porridge quietly across the table from her.

Breakfast, dinner, and supper were very silent meals-for Alys still remained determined. After each meal Brienne carried a well-filled tray to the south bedchamber and brought it down later on not noticeably depleted. Sara eyed its last descent with a troubled eye. Had Alys eaten anything at all? She met Podrick’s eyes over Brienne’s shoulder.

When Brienne rode out to the garrison to confer with the captain that evening, Podrick, who had been hanging about the armory and watching, slipped back into the hall with the air of a burglar and crept upstairs. Many was the servant that turned a blind eye to his caper. As a general thing, Podrick gravitated between the kitchen, the armory, the garrison, and the stables; once in a while he ventured uncomfortably into Brienne’s study or the great hall when a minor lordling came to call. But he had never made a habit of visiting the guest chambers on the second floor.

He tiptoed along the hall and stood for several minutes outside the door of the south bedchamber before he summoned courage to tap on it with his fingers and then open the door to peep in.

Alys was sitting on ledge of the arrow loop gazing mournfully out onto the Straits of Tarth. Very small and unhappy she looked, and Podrick’s mind slipped back to watching Willow Heddle stare into the fire at Hollow Hill. He’d seen enough of forlorn children to last a lifetime.

“Alys,” he whispered, as if afraid of being overheard, “how are you making it?”

Alys smiled wanly.

“Pretty well. I imagine a good deal, and that helps to pass the time. I see many ships pass by beneath on the Straits, and make a story for each of them. Who’s on board, which harbor they seek, what sort of cargo they are carrying…Of course, it’s rather lonesome. But then, I may as well get used to that.”

Alys smiled again, bravely facing the long years of solitary imprisonment before her.

Podrick decided that he must say what he had come to say without loss of time, lest Brienne return from the garrison prematurely. “Well now, Alys, don’t you think you’d better do it and have it over with?” he whispered. “It’ll have to be done sooner or later, you know, for there’s not a more determined woman in Westeros than Brienne of Tarth. You won’t win this battle of wills. Do it right off and have it over with.”

“Do you mean for me to apologize to Septa Roelle?”

“Yes-apologize-that’s the word,” said Podrick eagerly. “Just get the words out and smooth her feathers, so to speak. That’s what I was trying to get at.”

“I suppose…I could do it for you,” said Alys thoughtfully. “It would be true enough to say I am sorry, because I _am_ sorry now. I wasn’t a bit sorry last night. I was mad clear through, and I stayed mad all night. I know I did because I woke up three times and I was just furious every time. But this morning it was over. I wasn’t in a temper anymore-and it left a dreadful sort of goneness, too. I felt so ashamed of myself. But I just couldn’t think of going and telling Septa Roelle so. It would be so humiliating. I made up my mind I’d stay shut up here forever rather than do that. But still-I’d do anything for you-if you really want me to-”

“Yes, m’lady, I do. It’s terrible downstairs in the kitchens without you. Ser Brienne is so dour and Sara keeps giving her _looks_ while you’re still shut away upstairs. Just go down to the septa’s cottage and smooth things over.”

“Very well,” said Alys resignedly. “I’ll tell Lady Brienne as soon as she comes back that I’ve repented.”

“That’s right-that’s right, Alys. But don’t tell Brienne I said anything about it. She might think I was ‘putting my oar in’ as these islanders are wont to say and I promised not to do that.”

“Wild aurochs won’t drag the secret from me,” promised Alys solemnly. “How would wild aurochs drag a secret from a person anyhow?”

But Podrick was gone, scared at his own success. He fled hastily to the bailey, engaging the stablehands in deep conversation, lest Brienne should suspect what he had been up to. Brienne herself, upon her return to Evenfall Hall, was agreeably surprised to see Alys waiting beneath the portcullis.

“Well?”

“I’m sorry I lost my temper and said rude things, and I’m willing to go and tell Septa Roelle so.”

“Very well.” Brienne’s crispness gave no sign of her relief. She had been wondering what in the name of the Seven she should do if Alys did not give in. “I’ll take you down before sunset.”

Accordingly, before the sun slipped behind the battlements, behold Brienne and Alys trotting down the lane on their horses-‘Sooty’ and the Mother knows what name Alys had bestowed on Brienne’s steed. Lady Brienne rode erect, chin held high and shoulders back, wearing the oft-scarred enameled armor that she so favored. But Alys drooped in her saddle, dejection showing in her bearing to the point that it even affected the gait of gentle Sooty. But halfway down the road, before the little stream crossed its path, she lifted her head and Sooty began to step lightly as if sensing her mistress’ mood. The girl’s eyes fixed on the twilit sky and there was an air of subdued exhilaration about her. Brienne noticed immediately and turned her disapproving gaze on her charge. This was no meek penitent such as it behooved her to take into the presence of the offended Septa Roelle.

“What are you about, Alys?” she asked sharply.

“I’m imagining out what I must say to the septa,” answered Alys dreamily.

This was satisfactory-or should have been so. But Brienne could not rid herself of the notion that something in her scheme of punishment was going askew. Alys had no business to look so rapt and radiant.

Rapt and radiant Alys continued until they were in the very presence of Septa Roelle, who was sitting in the waning light of her portico and embroidering. Then the radiance vanished. Mournful penitence appeared on every feature. Before a word was spoken, Alys suddenly slipped from her saddle and sunk to her knees before the astonished septa and held out her hands beseechingly.

“Oh, Septa Roelle, I am so extremely sorry,” she said with a quiver in her voice. “I could never express all my sorry, no, not if I used up a whole sennight. You must just imagine it. I behaved terribly to you-and I’ve disgraced the dear House of Tarth and Lady Brienne who has let me stay at Evenfall Hall although I’m not a boy. I’m a dreadfully wicked and ungrateful bastard, and I deserve to be punished and cast out by respectable people forever. It was very wicked of me to fly into a temper because you told me the truth. It WAS the truth; every word you said was true. I am skinny and homely and unhealthy. What I said to you was true, too, but I shouldn’t have said it. Oh, Septa Roelle, please, please, forgive me. If you refuse it will be a lifelong sorrow on a poor little bastard girl, would you, even if she had a dreadful temper? Oh, I am sure you wouldn’t. Please say you forgive me, Septa Roelle.”

Alys remained on her knees and clasped her hands together, bowed her head, and waited for the word of judgment.

There was no mistaking her sincerity-it breathed in every tone of her voice. Both Brienne and Roelle recognized its unmistakable ring. But the former understood in dismay that Alys was actually enjoying her valley of humiliation-was reveling in the thoroughness of her abasement. Where was the wholesome punishment upon which she, Brienne, had plumed herself? Alys had turned it into a species of positive pleasure. She hadn’t seen this level of pageantry since watching the Lannisters at play in court at the Red Keep.

Good Septa Roelle, not being overburdened with perception, did not see this. She only perceived that Alys had made a very thorough apology and all resentment vanished from her kindly, if somewhat officious, heart.

“There, there, get up, child,” she said heartily. “Of course I forgive you. I guess I was a little too hard on you, anyway. But I’m such an outspoken person. You just mustn’t mind me, that’s what. It can’t be denied you’re terribly skinny, but I suppose that’s as can’t be helped as many went without meals in past years. You might recover your health with some good food and sunshine from Tarth. I wouldn’t be a mite surprised if you get a glossy coat on you like some grass fed filly-not a mite.”

“Oh, Septa Roelle!” Alys drew a long breath as she rose to her feet. “You have given me a hope. I shall always feel that you are a benefactor. Oh, I could endure anything if I only thought I could grow sleek and fat like some cow.”

Brienne flinched at her choice of words, though she understood that in the famine that follows all wars, thinness was no longer a desirable feature of children.

“And now may I go out into your garden and sit on that bench under the willow while you and Lady Brienne are talking? There is so much more to imagine out there.”

“Oh yes, run along, child. And you can pick a bouquet of borage over there in the corner if you like,” Roelle suggested, eager to be left with Lady Brienne.

As the waif ran off behind her cottage, Septa Roelle got briskly up from her chair by the door and beckoned Lady Brienne inside. The woman hitched her palfrey, loosed the saddle girth, and followed her inside, ducking her head beneath the lintel. As the door closed behind her, Roelle lit a lamp.

“She’s a real odd little thing. Take this chair, Brienne; it’s easier than the one you’ve got; I just keep that for the hired boy to sit on. Yes, she certainly is an odd child, but there is something kind of taking about her after all. I don’t feel so surprised at you and Podrick keeping her as I did once-nor so sorry for you, either. She may turn out all right. Of course, she has a strange way of expressing herself-a little too-well, too kind of forcible, you know; but she’ll likely get over that now that she’s come to live among civilized folks. Frankly, I’m surprised she doesn’t have the speech of a common harlot, being raised where she was. And then, her temper’s pretty quick, I guess; but there’s one comfort, a child that has a quick temper just blaze up and cool down, will never likely be sly or deceitful. Preserve me from a sly child, that’s what. On the whole, Brienne, I kind of like her.”

When Brienne and Alys rode home, the girl wore a wreath of bluebonnets in her hair.

“I apologized pretty well, didn’t I?” she said proudly as they rode up the hill toward the keep. “I thought since I had to do it I might as well do it thoroughly.”

“You did it thoroughly, all right,” was Brienne’s comment. Brienne was dismayed at finding herself inclined to laugh over the recollection. She had also an uneasy feeling that she should scold Alys for apologizing so well; but then, that was ridiculous! She compromised with her conscience by saying severely:

“I hope you won’t need to make many more such apologies. I hope you’ll try to control your temper now, Alys.”

"That would be so hard if people wouldn’t mock me so much a about my looks or my parentage. I can’t change either,” said Alys with a sigh. “I don’t get cross about other things; but I’m so tired of being called homely and skinny. Do you suppose I really will grow out of being ugly?”

Brienne knew how the girl felt and didn’t know how to comfort her.  She fell back on the standard phrases the septa had said to her as a girl. “You shouldn’t think so much about your looks, Alys. I’m afraid you are a very vain little girl.”

“How can I be vain when I know I’m homely?” protested Alys. “I love pretty things; and I hate to look in a glass and see something that isn’t pretty. It makes me feel so sorrowful-just as I feel when I look at any ugly thing. I pity it because it isn’t beautiful.”

“You don’t look in a mirror for beauty, Alys. You look in a mirror for truth.” Septa Roelle had taught Brienne that.

“Oh, but you can’t really believe that, do you Lady Brienne? I heard some of Lady Margaery’s friends call you Brienne the Beauty. You have the prettiest eyes, and strong arms, and hair the color of straw-not like me at all with my mouse brown hair and knobby elbows.”

It was too much. Brienne reined in her horse and trotted in a half-circle to face Alys-turning her mutilated cheek to the girl so she could get a long, fine look at the rigid scars in the waning light of the evening. “Alys!” she hissed, “do you call this beautiful? My broken nose, missing teeth, and disfigured face? My freckles and freakish height? My positively manly figure? When you look at me, can you believe they call me ‘Brienne the Beauty’ and not feel it is the finest joke?”

“But-but my lady! You’re a hero! They all say so. And everyone on Tarth has freckles-leastwise those that were born here. And any woman can have muscles if she uses them. The cook at the Rose had arms thicker than any blacksmith. I would know. Plenty of blacksmiths came to visit the whores there. Cook used to say it was because she kneaded dough all day long. Half the soldiers at the garrison are positively smitten with you; I hear the servants whisper when I play in the bailey. They all envy Squire Podrick for-”

“Alys, enough!” Brienne was entirely horrified at the direction the conversation was going. She had tried her best to discourage Alys’ vanity in the ways Septa Roelle had taught to her when she was a young girl, but somehow found herself in the disorienting position as a standard of beauty for the little girl.

Alys stayed her rambling for a moment, then plucked a stem from her braid and buried her nose in it. “Oh, aren’t these flowers sweet! It was lovely of Septa Roelle to give them to me. I have no hard feelings against the septa now. It gives you a lovely, comfortable feeling to apologize and be forgiven, doesn’t it? Aren’t the stars bright tonight? If you could live in a star, which one would you pick? I’d like that lovely red one that hung in the sky every day with the long tail. Do you remember? It was there long as I can remember, and then just one day it vanished from the sky.”

“Alys, do hold your tongue,” said Brienne, thoroughly worn out trying to follow Alys’ thoughts.

Alys said no more until they rode into the bailey and dismounted. The girl insisted on stabling Sooty herself, and was just tall enough to unsaddle the grey mare. A little wind blew up and over the sea cliffs, laden with the tang of brine and a hint of the evergreens on the coast of the Stormlands across the Straits. Far up in the shadows of the battlements, a light flickered as a soldier passed in front of a torch. Alys suddenly emerged from the horse stall, came close to Brienne, and slipped her hand into the older woman’s callused palm.

“It’s lovely to come home and know it’s home,” she said. “I love Evenfall Hall already, and I never loved any place before. No place ever seemed like home. Oh, Lady Brienne, I’m so happy. I could even go into the sept right now and pray to the Seven and not find it a bit hard.”

Something warm and pleasant welled up in Brienne’s heart at touch of that thin little hand in her own-a throb of the maternity she had missed, perhaps. Its very foreignness and sweetness disturbed her. She hastened to restore her sensations to their normal calm by saying something completely out of character for her-words of comfort.

“It feels like more of a home with you here, Alys. You will always have a place here at Evenfall Hall.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the US, during and after the Great Depression, being skinny was a sign that a person was unhealthy and/or too poor to eat. There was actually a [sizable advertising campaign](https://www.google.com/search?q=great+depression+advertising+about+putting+on+weight&client=firefox-a&hs=Kf9&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=nts&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=bZEyVOOtDcqqyAS8z4KwDw&ved=0CIUBEOwJ&biw=1366&bih=631#rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=nts&tbm=isch&q=vintage+weight+gain+ads&imgdii=_) aimed at both men and women in the US on how to put on weight. I felt this take on ugliness was appropriate after so much poverty and famine in Westeros, as opposed to focusing on scars or other disfigurements from battle, and Alys' speech to Brienne illustrates my opinion.


	10. Alys' Impressions of Education

“Well, how do you like them?” said Brienne.

Alys was standing in the south bedchamber, looking solemnly at three new dresses spread out on the bed. One kirtle was of a sturdy Tarth wool, dyed brown with white ribbon trim and a white overtunic, a brown deer slung on a pole embroidered on the breast; one was of a brown flannel which had been leftover from the maidservants new uniforms and Brienne felt would be suitable for play; and one was a stiff muslin in white with a white overtunic all covered in brown and gold scrollwork and beading that had come over from the mainland.

“I’ll imagine that I like them,” said Alys soberly.

“I don’t want you to imagine it,” said Brienne, offended. “I can see plainly that you don’t like the dresses. What is wrong with them? They are much finer than that piece of scrap you wore when you first arrived.”

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t you like them?”

“They’re-they’re not-the right colors for me,” said Alys reluctantly.

“Not the right colors!” Brienne sniffed. “These are your house colors, Alys, and you will wear them with pride. I don’t believe in pampering vanity. Those are all the dresses you’ll get this spring. The flannel will do for when you are at play, and the brown kirtle is for everyday wear. The white with the beadwork is for special occasions, like attending services at the sept or hosting visitors at Evenfall. I’ll expect you to keep them neat and clean and be responsible for your own mending, as I was at your age. I should think you’d be grateful to get most anything after that skimpy yellowed thing you’ve been wearing.”

“Oh, I AM grateful,” protested Alys. “But I’d rather wear the blue and pink of Tarth. I’d be ever so much more grateful if-if you’d made just one of them in your own colors. Podrick wears the pink and blue. It would give me so much pride, Brienne, just to wear a dress in your colors as if I really, truly belonged here.”

“Well, you’ll have to do without for just now. I’ll not have more fabric wasted just because it’s the wrong color for your sensibilities. Tarth is still rebuilding our flocks, as we had to butcher and eat many of our sheep during the wars,” Brienne explained.

“If there isn’t any more good wool, can I dye these?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, those are brand new. If you must know, there are new training clothes in the footlocker for you, and those are in the colors of Tarth. When you’re at arms practice, you’ll represent Tarth,” said Brienne, as she moved to leave the room.

Alys clasped her hands and looked to her foster mother. “Arms practice! Do you really mean it, Lady Brienne?”

“You’ll start your training tomorrow. Which means I’ll expect you up early for practice at the garrison, after that you’ll have lessons with Maester Flint, and then evenings will be spent with Septa Roelle when she has time to teach you all a lady needs to know. If the septa cannot come to Evenfall Hall, you may have the evening to yourself.”

Alys bounced on the balls on her feet, and then ran to hold up the dresses to her body one by one while she spun around the room. “I did hope there would be a pink one with a blue tunic,” she whispered disconsolately once the door had shut behind Brienne. “I prayed for one, but I didn’t much expect it on that account. I didn’t suppose the Maid would have time to bother about a little bastard girl’s dress. But having training leathers just like hers is so much better.”

The next morning, a herald came from the Barrens with a missive for Brienne, preventing her from going to the garrison with Alys.

“You’ll have to go down to the garrison and find the master-at-arms, Alys,” she said. “See that you get into the right class. Now, you behave properly. Podrick will be there with the more experienced fighters, but you can see him if you have any troubles. Once the lessons are done, you’re to come back to Evenfall for dinner before going up to the maester’s towers to learn your letters. I’ll want your report when I come back from the Barrens.”

Alys started off irreproachable, arrayed in the brown flannel, which, while decent as regards length and certainly not open to the charge of skimpiness, contrived to emphasize every corner and angle of her thin figure. Her hair was still the same dull mouse brown which disappointed Alys, who had permitted herself secret visions of glossy dark chestnut locks with flowers twined in her braids. The latter, however, were supplied before Alys reached the main road, for being confronted halfway down the lane with a golden frenzy of wind-stirred buttercups and a glory of field-speedwell, Alys promptly and liberally plaited her hair with the stems. Whatever other people might have thought of the result it satisfied Alys, and she tripped gaily down the road, holding her wind-tousled head with its decorations of blue and yellow very proudly.

When she reached the garrison, she found that it was simply a large barracks built unlike the other buildings on Tarth-with straight walls! The construction looked new, with freshly hewn beams and a large open air practice yard inside. She made her way past the rows of bunks and proceeded into the courtyard where she found several disparate groups practicing with specialized weapons. There, she found soldiers and common folk alike, all more or less attired in the uniform blue and pink , supplemented by stained leathers, and all staring with curious eyes at this strange creature in their midst, with her extraordinary head adornment. The soldiers at the garrison had already heard strange stories about Alys. Septa Roelle said she had an awful temper; Jasper Buckler, the new page from Bronzegate, said she talked all the time to herself or to the trees and flowers like a crazy girl. They looked at her and whispered to each other as the islanders were wont do to when presented with an outlander. Nobody made any friendly advances, then or later on when the opening exercises were over and Alys found herself wandering over to the leader to inquire after the master-at-arms.

Thistle was a thick-set, middle-aged lady with steel grey hair cropped short and sleeked back behind her ears. She had taught arms training to the islanders since her husband, the last master-at-arms, died the same night as the invasion of the Golden Company. Her method of teaching evidently involved sternly glaring at the particular little girl she thought should have begun her weapons’ training from the moment she stepped foot off the ship and she immediately set the island children to thumping her repeatedly with staves.

She did not think she liked Arms Master Thistle, and she felt very miserable; every other little girl and boy in her group handled their staves with long familiarity. By the end of the morning, her knuckles were swollen and scraped raw from repeated thrashings by the other children and Alys could no longer pretend herself the hero in her fine practice leathers.

After the morning drills, Alys tromped disconsolately back to Evenfall Hall. She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Podrick catching up to her on the road, Jasper at his heels.

“Well, how did you like arms training?” Podrick wanted to know.

“I didn’t like it a bit. It was horrid.”

Jasper, the pageboy from Bronzegate, snorted and spat into the sedge growing on the bank. “You looked like you didn’t know what end to hold.”

“Jasper!” Podrick rebuked.

She shuffled slowly, letting them overtake her, and sharply swung a switch overhead, knocking some cherry blossoms from the branches overhead. “Podrick, I don’t know why I have to learn to fight. I’ll have you or Lady Brienne or…” she let herself drift off, her thoughts unspoken.

Her flowers having faded and wilted during the practice, Alys had discarded them in the road a quarter mile from the keep, so Brienne was spared the knowledge of that for a time. After a quick meal, she changed into her brown kirtle with the Hunt sigil on the overtunic. She climbed the spiral stair to Maester Flint’s chambers behind Jasper and groaned inwardly to see they were the last to arrive. Six other children had already found seats and Jasper went and found a place with some of the boys. Left to her own devices, she slipped into a corner by the window.

Maester Flint made an awfully long speech to the children about how grateful they should be that Lady Brienne wanted him to teach all the children on Tarth. She would have been dreadfully tired before he got through with listening to himself if she hadn’t been sitting by that window. Below the maester’s tower, she could just make out the pennant at the top of the Barrens’ watchtower to the north and some noisy gulls that had decided to wheel past the window.

When Flint managed to finish talking about himself and all of his training, and how much the late Lord Selwyn had relied on him, he finally got around to asking the students how much they knew.

Jasper, as the heir to Bronzegate, already knew his letters and sums, as well as having memorized much of the heraldry of Westeros. Daise, who was fourteen, was the niece of Cook Sara and could read some. She often went to Lowtown with a list for the larder and had to do simple sums to make change. Cheswyck and Gull were stable lads near Jasper’s age and knew about as much as Alys. Bina and Lis, six year old sisters with ginger hair, were too shy to answer the maester’s questions. Perry was the oldest. He was sixteen and already lived at the barracks with the island’s garrison. At Flint’s prompting, he explained he was only there at Thistle’s insistence and if he had his way, he’d be down at the Broken Mast with the other off duty soldiers.

Despite her lack of knowledge, Alys soon found herself interested in the scrolls Maester Flint unrolled on his desk. In addition to the scratchy text in the center of the page, the margins were covered with decorative scrollwork and fantastic creates all depicted in golds and greens and reds. Soon, she forgot to be self-conscious and was quickly absorbed in what the maester was telling them.

After the lessons were done, she retreated downstairs to find Brienne waiting for her to report on her first day of lessons. Alys sunk down on the bench in the kitchens with a long sigh, reaching for the steaming mug of tea that Sara had made appear like magic beneath the child’s nose, and kicked her heals against the table leg.

“I behaved well, just as you told me. I went into the barracks and there were a lot of other little children, but none my age, and I stood in the back while they all went through some routine exercise with their weapons. Thistle made an awfully big deal about the fact that I came to her with no fighting experience. I was so dreadfully ashamed by the time she got through with me that if there hadn’t been a whole courtyard of people to see my shame, I vow I would have sat down right there an had a good, long cry.”

“You shouldn’t have felt ashamed, Alys. Not all the small folk learn to fight. Thistle suggested my father make it mandatory after the invasion of the Stormlands, and Lord Selwyn quite agreed. I happen to think it practical. Tarth is renowned for her archers, but most all were on the mainland with Tarly’s troops. That left many women and children as Tarth’s only line of defense. Things are different here than when I was a girl, and it’s more common for peasants and girls to learn to fight.”

Alys mulled that over and seemed to come to some sort of decision and nodded to herself.

“And how about the lesson with Maester Flint? Did you like that better?”

“Oh, yes; and I answered a lot of questions. Maester Flint asked ever so many. I don’t think it was fair for him to do all the asking. There were lots I wanted to ask him, but I didn’t like to because I thought it might make the other children laugh at me. Then Gull and Ches recited a learning rhyme about horses. The maester asked me if I knew any learning songs. I told him I didn’t, but I could sing him ‘The Bear and the Maiden Fair’ if he liked. That was popular at the Rose. It isn’t really a learning song, but it’s so funny and I think I’d like to see a bear sometime. Maester said it wouldn’t do and he told me to learn ‘The Bloody Cup’ for tomorrow because he said the islanders know all the reaving songs to remember that the raids could come again. I puzzled out the lines with him afterwards and it’s very rousing. There are some lines in particular that just thrill me.

> _“They shipped me aboard a reaving ship bound for the Shiv’ring Sea._
> 
> _Where them storm winds blow and the ice and snow even make the Others freeze._
> 
> _I had no clothes I had no gear, I had had enough._
> 
> _T’was then we raided down the coast and drank from the Bloody Cup._
> 
> _The Cup. The Cup. The greenlands had had enough._
> 
> _The Drowned God bid us reave and rape, drunk on the Bloody Cup.”_

I’ll practice it all night and I’m to sing it for us all tomorrow. After the lessons were over, Maester Flint showed me your family book. I sat just as still as I could and I looked at the family records as long as the maester allowed. It is a very thick book. I found all the shields very interesting and I imagine that once I can puzzle out the words it will be ever so fascinating. I suppose all your deeds are recorded in there as well, Lady Brienne.”

Brienne felt helplessly that all this should be sternly reproved, but she was hampered by the undeniable fact that some of the things Alys had said, especially about the constant presence of pirates in the Narrow Sea, were what she herself had preoccupied her mind with since resuming the seat at Tarth. She had never expressed her concerns to the maester or seneschal, and it almost seemed that those secret, unuttered, critical thoughts had suddenly taken visible and accusing shape and form of this outspoken bastard girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Bloody Cup is a raiding song from the Iron Islands. I couldn't find lyrics for them, so I made my own. I set it to the tune of "Oh Susanna", but you can imagine it how you like. I figured that Tarth would have a long history of dealing with raiders, as they are an island. 
> 
> I hope you like what I did with Aly's education. As we've seen so often in ASOIAF, the common folk suffer during times of war, and are oft times ill equipped to defend themselves. I liked turning that on its tail by having the peasants learn to fight from the garrison of soldiers.


	11. A Solemn Duty

It was not until the following week that Brienne recalled there was a girl about Alys’ age on the island. “I’m going up to the Barrens and then out to Morningfall to see to the guard towers. If you like, you can accompany me and meet my vassals. Daena Barrens is about your age and-”

Alys rose to her feet, with clasped hands, the tears glistening on her cheeks; the sash she had been hemming slipped unheeded to the floor.

“Oh, Brienne, I’m frightened. What if she shouldn’t like me? It would be the disappointment of my life.”

Privately, Brienne thought that was the most ridiculous notion, as a child raised among common whores was sure to have had other disappointments in life. But then she remembered how nervous she’d been when first joining Renly’s bannermen, looking for a friendly face.

“Don’t get flustered, I’m sure she’ll like you fine. You’re the only girl on the island that’s her age. I suppose Daena has no choice but to be your friend. Now, you must be polite and well behaved, and don’t let your tongue wander. You represent House Hunt as Ser Hyle’s only child and House Tarth as my foster-are you trembling? You’re absolutely shivering all over!”

Alys WAS trembling. Her face was pale and tense.

“Oh, Brienne, you’d be excited, too, if you were going to meet a little girl you hoped to be your closest friend,” she said as she hastened upstairs to change from her flannel play dress.

The rolling hills of the north end of the island were comprised of limestone bedrock swept clean of soil by the stiff sea winds and criss-crossed with deep grikes. In the little crevices, hardy wildflowers and stunted trees sheltered. To Alys, it resembled nothing so much as the wrinkled face of a walnut. There was not enough water to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him. Yet the cattle here were very fat, for the grass growing in turfs of earth, of two or three foot square, that lie between the limestone clints, was very sweet and nourishing.

They went over the Barrens by way of the foot path instead of the road, with Sooty picking her way carefully among the clints. Dalla Barrens came to the stone wall that ringed in the tower. She was a tall black-eyed, black-haired woman, with a very resolute mouth. She had the reputation of being very strict with her servants and children.

“My Lady Brienne, do come in,” she said cordially with a slight bow. “This is the little girl you’re fostering from the Reach, I suppose?”

“Yes, this is Alys Flowers,” said Brienne.

“Flowers?” Dalla said with raised eyebows.

“My father is a knight. Ser Hyle Hunt,” gasped Alys, who, tremulous and excited as she was to finally lay that claim somewhere, was determined there should be no misunderstanding on that important point.

Dalla, not hearing or not comprehending, merely shook hands and said kindly: “Well met. How do you find the island?”

“I find it very beautiful, thank you mistress,” said Alys gravely. Then aside to Brienne in an audible whisper, “Where is her little girl?”

Daena was standing barefoot on the promontory behind the tower, casting a net into a tidal pool, when Lady Brienne and her foster girl arrived. She was a very pretty little girl, with her mother’s black eyes and hair, and ruddy wind-chapped cheeks, and the merry expression which was the inheritance from her father. Daena’s red skirts were tied up at her waist, leave her legs bare as the white waves sprayed up over her feet.

“This is my girl, Daena,” said Dalla. “Daena, you might show Alys around the grounds. It would be good for Lady Brienne’s girl to see how we keep our duty to Tarth. She fishes entirely too much-” this to Brienne as the little girls rounded the side of the building-“and I can’t prevent her, for her father always encouraged her. She’s always throwing a line or hauling a net, chewing tales with the fishwives or dogging the heels of sailors down at Lowtown. I’m glad she has the prospect of a girl playmate, since so many children went to the mainland after the war. Perhaps it will teach her more of a lady’s ways.”

Outside in the bailey of the watchtower, which was full of hardy sea kale and gorse, stood Alys and Daena, gazing bashfully at each other over a clump of tangled nets.

The Barrens watchtower was of the usual island construction. Quarried limestone ashlars rose up from the natural promontory on the north end of the island that guarded the entrance to the Straits of Tarth. The bottom ten feet or so were whitewashed. The family and servants all lived in the single round tower that possessed several stories. Jagged crenellations crowned the building, and atop it all was a glass chamber that held an ever-burning fire that had a double use: that of a signal light for ships indicative of the rocky shoals and a warning light for the other towers that ringed the island and lined Shipbreaker Bay.

Down below in the bailey, the tower was encircled by a dry-stack stone wall. Its low height was meant more to keep sheep at bay than to protect the building. Prim, right angled paths neatly bordered with clamshells intersected in military precision and in the beds in between, medicinal herbs ran riot. The herbal tradition of Tarth predated the healing practices of the maesters of Oldtown. It was a knotted, tangled, almost broken thread of a system to which the islanders still clung.

“Oh, Daena,” said Alys at last, clasping her hands and speaking almost in a whisper, “oh, do you think you can like me a little? Enough to be my friend?”

Daena laughed. Daena always laughed before she spoke. “Why, I guess so,” she said frankly. “I’m awfully glad you’ve come to live at Evenfall Hall. It will be nice to have somebody to play with. There isn’t any other girl on the island near my age. Most left after the invasion of the Golden Company to hide behind the walls of Storm’s End, and I’ve only got brothers.”

“And your father?”

“Gone. He offered his bow with most of Tarth’s men during the War of Five Kings. He served under Lord Tarly and never came home.”

“Oh.” Alys searched for something to say. “What was he like?”

“Big.” Daena laughed. Daena always laughed when she was sad, too. “But I was a little’un when he left, so I ‘spose everyone was big to me then. My mum says I have his smile.”

When Brienne and Alys left to check in at Morningfall, Daena went with them as far as the natural stone bridge that arched over a deep grike called the Stranger’s Gullet. The two little girls walked with their arms about each other. At the bridge they parted with many promises to spend the next afternoon together.

“Well, do you think the two of you might get on together?” asked Brienne as they approached the motte of Morningfall.

“Oh yes,” sighed Alys, blissfully unconscious of the stares she garnered from the folk at this new watchtower. Morningfall Hall perched on the sea cliffs that stared east toward Essos. Ser Morly lived there with a handful of servants, soldiers, and his grandson Hob. Calling it a hall seemed generous, as its tower was even simpler than that of the Barrens. Here, the tower contained only a spiral stair leading to the ramparts with space for a signal fire. At its base, low buildings half carved from the bedrock crouched on the bluffs. It was the island’s easternmost tower but not its first line of defense. That lay across the deep channel on Reef Town, an island off the coast-almost within shouting distance of Ser Morly’s hall-that was anything but a town.

The bluffs beneath Morningfall curled around and cradled Reef Town Island that held a tower of its own, a lightly manned outpost inaccessible by anything but hand and toe holds leading from the waves below. The folk that lived there kept a few goats, collected rainwater, and ate the eggs of nesting seabirds. Brienne had not been there since before the wars and had no plans to climb up there today. Her meeting with Ser Morly went quickly, and she made note to arrange a more frequent schedule of provisioning as well as increasing the allotment of watchmen. If there was anything the island folk had learned from the war for the throne, it was that they couldn’t afford not to keep the signal fires manned. Not again.

“Oh Brienne, I’m the happiest girl on Tarth this very moment. I assure you, I’ll study very hard for Maester Flint and not resent Thistle so much during arms practice. Daena is going to show me a sea cave tomorrow on Willym Bell’s farm. She is going to teach me how to fish, too. She says it’s tremendously exciting. She’s going to show me a place where the orchids grow even in the winter, can you imagine it? She says it’s in a little valley with a waterfall and the mists from the water make a rainbow! Don’t you think that Daena has the prettiest eyes? I wish my eyes were black pools like hers instead of the muddy hazel eyes I’m stuck with. Daena is going to teach me to sing a song called ‘My Lady Wife’. She’s going to give me a bit of whittling she done on some driftwood, too; it’s a beautiful carving of a stag. I wish I had something to give Daena. I’m an inch taller than Daena, but she is ever so much fatter; she says she’d like to be thin so that the boys don’t tease her so much, but I’m afraid she said it to soothe my feelings. We’re going to the western beach some day to gather shells."

“Well, all I hope is you won’t talk to Daena to death,” said Brienne. “But remember this in all your planning, Alys. You’re not going to play all the time nor most of it. I have a duty to do by you. You’ll have your training with Thistle and Maester Flint and Septa Roelle on the days when she has time. It will have to be done first before I’ll give you leave to go play.”

Alys’ cup of happiness was full, and Podrick caused it to overflow. He had just walked into the bailey from the kitchens to meet them and sheepishly produced a small parcel and handed it to Alys, with a deprecatory look at Brienne.

“I knew a girl once a lot like you that liked lemoncakes, so I got you some,” he said.

“You’ll make yourself sick eating all them at once,” warned Brienne.

“Oh, no, indeed, I won’t,” said Alys eagerly. “I’ll just eat one tonight, Lady Brienne. And can I give Daena half of them? The other half will taste twice as sweet to me if I give some to her.”

“Pod, I’ll say this for her,” said Brienne when Alys had gone upstairs to freshen up, “she is generous. I’m surprised, seeing as she grew up in such dire straits. Can you believe it’s only a month since she came, and it seems as if she’d been here always. I can’t imagine Evenfall Hall without her. Don’t give me that look. You always give me looks. Stick out your tongue, boy, so I know you still have one.”

Pod smiled at the old jest and stuck his tongue out at her good-naturedly. “I told you so,” he said while still holding his tongue out.

“You perfect snot. I’ll admit that I’m glad now I agreed to keep the child and that I’m getting rather fond of her, but don’t you rub it in, Podrick Payne.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to say that I'm still very glad not much has been revealed about Tarth. I'm freely imagining it as possessing watchtowers that help guard the straits and also watch the narrow sea, thus making House Tarth quite important to the Stormlands. It seems only reasonable considering it's placement at the mouth of the bay. Here's a [link to Tarth's page](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Tarth) on westeros.org.
> 
> Update: A World of Ice and Fire was released on 10/28/14. I'm sure it will smash my headcanon of Tarth.


	12. A Tempest in the Stormlands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've updated the tags.

“What a splendid day!” said Alys, drawing a long breath. “Isn’t it good just to be alive on a day like this? I pity the people who aren’t born yet for missing it. They may have good days, of course, but they can never have this one. And it’s splendider still to have such a lovely ship to sail by, isn’t it?”

“This is a fine ship, I’ll agree,” said Brienne practically, checking on the straps of the canvas slings to be sure the horses were comfortable.

“You know what, Lady Brienne? You walk on the floor just like those sailors,” Alys pointed out.

“It’s called a deck, Alys. And I know. I learned to sail before I could sit a horse.” Brienne rubbed the nose of the spotted mare and fed her a wrinkled apple.

“Really?!” The girl’s eyes grew round as saucers. “That’s so romantic. I can imagine you just now, bare feet on the deck, kerchief tied on top of your hair to keep the sun off your head. Your trousers are frayed and salt stained, bagged at the knee. Strands of pearls and opals and gold and rubies are strung about your neck-a symbol of the treasures you’d found along the way. You would be queen of the seas, and the king in every land would fall at your feet in love.”

Brienne snorted at Alys’ fancies and said, “Better to leave that to the Mistress of the Ships. I have a duty to Tarth not to gallivant around on the ocean.”

“Oh, but you can imagine, can’t you?” Alys came to stand at the starboard side, small hands gripping the rail, and stared at the roiling waves in hope that a strange creature would breach and spray her.

“No, I cannot,” she answered, but Brienne said it with a smile.

Their cog veered into Shipbreaker Bay and the castle at Storm’s End came clearly into view. At the base of the white bluffs, a dark shape appeared beneath the waves, signaling the entrance to the sea cave that lead beneath the castle. The cliffs rose one hundred and fifty feet and from this distance it was difficult to discern where the bedrock ended and the curtain wall began. The masons had been so gifted that the stonework appeared to be without seam or chink. Brienne took one look and surmised as always that Storm’s End would not be nearly as drafty as Evenfall Hall.

Atop the battlements, trebuchets crouched behind the crenellations, ready to defend the keep from sea invasion. Above it all climbed the central drum tower that was so huge, that all lived within comfortably-the lord and his lady, the soldiers in the barracks, the immense granary, and even all the workshops for the smith and wainwrights and carpenters. A new banner flew from the top of the tower, and it took Brienne aback to see it. The crest was a shield party per pale. On the left was a gold field with a black bull and on the right was a black field with a gold stag; both creatures had lowered their heads in charge.

The raven from Storm’s End had arrived last week, summoning the lords of the Stormlands for a council. As they rounded the little cape, Brienne spotted the sea turtle flag and observed that the ship from Estermont had beaten them there. She wondered briefly which of Eldon’s heirs would have come for the council, as she had gotten along rather well with Ser Alyn. The other lords and their retainers would have come overland.

When their ship put in to port, Brienne was delighted to find that Ser Gendry had come to meet them at the docks. Even now, she was shocked at the resemblance to her King Renly. Though he had grown a beard in recent years, there was no mistaking the shape of his forehead, those piercing blue eyes and thick, black hair for anything but a Baratheon. Thankfully, he did not run to fat like his father Robert, though he did have the same shoulders that commended them to the warhammer rather than the sword.

She supposed it must have been easier for the folk of Storm’s End to accept Gendry as their new liege. There is something to be said for a familiar face even though he had not grown up running through the castle’s halls. If the queen had not found a place for him, some lord or another would have approached him eventually with ideas of intrigue or rebellion. What was it the Hand of the Queen had said?

> _“A bastard…is a unique thing. Put a signet ring on his hand and send him forth, and you have created a diplomat no foreign ruler will dare to turn away. He may safely be sent where a prince of the blood may not be risked. Imagine the uses for one who is and yet is not of the royal bloodline. Hostage exchanges. Marital alliances. Quiet work. The diplomacy of the knife.”_

King Robert had been careless with his bastards. They lay scattered across Westeros like idle tools waiting for a keen mind to bend them to use. If there had been anything learned from the War of Five Kings, it was that an unclear succession was dangerous for all. She supposed that consigning the disparate Baratheon bastards into marriages with good houses, lands, and titles all served to tie them to the throne with loyalty and gratitude. _A shrewd Hand indeed_ , thought Brienne.

“M’lady Brienne,” said Gendry over her hand. He had never gotten the knack of pronouncing titles like a highborn lord. “I trust the passage was swift.”

“Ser Gendry,” Brienne flushed, still caught up in his eyes that were so like Renly’s and yet not. “This is Alys, my foster daughter from House Hunt.”

“Ser Hyle’s daughter, of course. He told me you were kind enough to foster her for him.”

He turned to the girl and treated her with all the respect due a little lady, and for once, Alys was speechless. Brienne thought about how Gendry must understand the girl’s untenable position as a bastard and silently thanked him with her eyes.

A servant came for the bridles of the two horses, leading them around the sloping path that wound its way to the keep. Another offered a bowl of water scented with chamomile to freshen them, and both Brienne and Alys availed themselves of it. As they stood on the pier exchanging pleasantries, a derrick swung overhead, hooking a bale of wool from the decks. The boatswain barked orders on deck as the sailors on the cog rolled several jute sacks into the open. Several bales of good carded wool already sat behind them on the dock, evidence of the labor of Tarth. Brienne had not wanted to let a trip to the mainland be wasted, and had sent a raven ahead with their needs for certain dry goods. The harbormaster stood by ready with dockworkers to help manage.

Turning to follow Gendry up the stairs, Brienne saw that Alys had wandered off and cornered two sailors from the cog. They were both confused looking young men that seemed not to know how to react to the chattering child.

“…and next time we sail over, Daena will come with us and she’ll sit just right by me. I think we will sit at the stern so that I can wave goodbye to all my dear friends on island. We can be by the rail and let our feet dangle down the side of the hull and look down in the shining sapphire waters of Tarth. There are a lot of nice sailors down at the Broken Mast, Daena told me so. Do you go to the Broken Mast? It must splendid fun to have friends to eat with at the inn. Do you have many friends that are sailors? It’s so nice to have other girls to play with when I train with Thistle at the garrison. But of course I like Daena best and always will, though her mother doesn’t let her come to weapon’s practice with the other Tarth children. I ADORE Daena. I’m dreadfully behind the others with staves, but Mistress Thistle says that I have promise with the sling. The others in my group already moved on to bows. Did you know that Tarth is famous for its bowman? Podrick told me so himself. Isn’t that just splendid? I feel disgraced that she won’t let me try my hand at the bow yet-as if I don’t really belong on Tarth at all. I’m going to miss Maester Flint’s lessons while I’m here with Lady Brienne. He’s been teaching me to read and showing me geography and making me learn the history of Robert’s Rebellion. I think that’s silly though. Robert’s Rebellion is ancient history. I’d rather learn about the War of the Five Kings and all about Lady Brienne being a hero. Maester Flint says my memory is very good, and every day at lessons I recite a new learning rhyme for the rest of the children. Jasper Buckler leant me his quill for while I practice my letters. He says it’s from a real great horned owl. I must believe him because I’ve never seen an owl before. I like the feathers in your hair. The barring on them is quite nice. Can I have one of the beads from your braid? It’s ever so pretty and I think I’d like to make a necklace out of it to remember my first voyage to the capital of the Stormlands. Lady Margaery gave me a tiny porcelain rose to remind me of Highgarden. Cook Sara told me that Gull the stable hand said I had a very pretty nose. Isn’t that wonderful? That is the first compliment I have ever had in my life and you can’t imagine what a strange feeling it gave me. Do you think I have a pretty nose? I know you’ll tell me the truth.”

“Your nose is well enough,” said Brienne shortly as she rescued the sailors from Alys’ ramblings. She pulled the girl behind her and when the girl slipped her hand in hers, it gave her heart a queer little flip. She wondered suddenly what her sister Alysanne would have been like if she’d grown up.

“I guess you’ll meet your father while we’re here,” said Brienne. “Ser Gendry tells me he just arrived at Storm’s End last night after leaving the army. He’s come to see if any Storm Lords need more bannermen, apparently.”

“Oh, OH!” exclaimed Alys with wide eyes. She craned her neck to peer around the bailey, as if doing so would summon her father from the stonework.

“Not until after we are seen to our chambers and go down to the hall for supper.”

“Oh, Brienne, can I wear the white kirtle tonight? The one with the beading? It’s ever so fancy and I want to look my best when he sees me for the first time.”

“It’s in your trunk. They’re bringing it shortly. I told you the white is to be worn for special occasions, and meeting your liege lord counts a special occasion.”

“Will you tell me about him? I mean about the real him? All I know is that he’s a hedge knight and holds you in esteem. You never talk about him. Not really. And my mother never even spoke his name.”

Brienne thought about Hyle and tried to trim away her bitterness. It was nothing to share with a little girl. “You have his hair and eyes, and the same honest look in the face. He tells funny stories and likes to laugh. He used to give apples to my horse.”

“Oh, isn’t that nice? Do you suppose he’ll like my horse Sooty? People who are kind to animals are always good, that’s what.”

“Well, Podrick likes him well enough, too, if that’s anything to go by.” Abruptly Brienne stopped talking as she felt she’d run out of nice things to say about the girl’s father.

Brienne’s chambers were well apportioned, and if she had to admit it, they were even more comfortable than her own suite on Tarth. Alys had a little bed in an adjoining chamber and her squeals of delight could be heard in the next room. There was a low thumping noise that suggested cupboard doors were being open and closed in rapid succession as she explored her room.

As this was a formal occasion, she opted not to don her plate armor. Instead, Brienne pulled a white tunic over her head and had Alys help her with the blue and pink quarter colored gambeson. Jule the seamstress had embroidered the evening star and crescent moon on their respective fields. Alys, in turn, wore the white kirtle with embroidered tabard. She quickly plaited the girl’s hair into a simple queue and they ventured downstairs to the hall.

They entered through the back and spotted knights and lords in several groups distracted by their own conversations. This was the first time Brienne had gone to court as the Evenstar, and felt the duty weigh on her. Bending to Alys, she pointed toward the eastern wall that held three large hearths. “That’s Ser Hyle Hunt sitting by the hearth, Alys. Just look at him and try to deny you’re not the spitting image of your father.”

Alys looked accordingly. She had a good chance to do so, for Hyle was absorbed in a dice game with two other knights and a lady who kept smirking in his direction. She thought he might be a tall man, though she couldn’t be sure as he was sitting down. Her father wore a sleeveless tabard trimmed in brown with the bound and slung deer on a pole that she was so familiar with now. Beneath the short surcoat, he wore steel mail and leather trousers with boots that laced up his calves. There was only a small kris with an embossed sheath belted at his waist. Even from here, Alys could see her father’s mouth twisted into a teasing smile as he said something to a serving maid.

The castellan announced Lady Brienne, the Evenstar of Tarth, and the eyes in the hall turned on them both. Brienne straightened the hem of her gambeson and Alys reached up to lace her fingers with hers. Hyle straightened up from his chair, catching their eyes, and winked with exaggerated humor at Alys.

“Oh, Lady Brienne, I think my father is very handsome,” confided Alys in a breathless voice. “Do you think it would be good manners to go meet with him now?”

Brienne didn’t share Alys’ opinion of Hyle, and in fact thought his face was utterly plain, but she refrained from saying so. Instead, she ushered them to the long table. It wasn’t until supper was half over that things really began to happen.

Gendry was at the high table in heated discussions with the lords of the rainwood and Cape Wrath about lumber prices and the rest of the Storm Lords were doing pretty much as they pleased eating the last of the courses, drinking ale, and exchanging ribald stories with one another. Hyle Hunt was trying to make Brienne of Tarth look at him and failing utterly, because she was at that moment totally oblivious not only to the existence o f Hyle Hunt, but also of every other knight in Storm’s End. Ron Connington had been seated across from her and Alys at table so Brienne fixed her eyes upon her plate and was engrossed in the contents of her half eaten capon, studiously avoiding anyone’s eyes. Alys Flowers, to her credit, kept good manners and silence as she tried to memorize every moment of her first courtly meal.

Hyle Hunt wasn’t used to putting himself out to make Brienne look at him and meeting with failure. Normally, she was very dependable at turning a fierce scowl in his direction. She SHOULD look at him, that stubborn woman that he’d followed across half of Westeros.

“To Brienne the Beauty!” Hyle toasted, as he raised his ale cup. “Deadlier even than the Just Maid, as no man could block her blows with shield or sword.”

Then Brienne looked at him with vengeance as the hall erupted in hurrahs.

And she did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her determination to remain unnoticed forgotten in her anger. She flashed one indignant glance at Hyle from eyes whose usual sapphire sparkle was swiftly quenched in the equally angry colors of a storm surge and swept towards his place at the long table.

“You, ser, are no true knight!” she hissed in a low voice. “How dare you make mockery of me?”

And then-thwack! Brienne slammed her mug on the table in front of Hyle and the contents sloshed over and onto his white surcoat, staining it crimson.

People high and low everywhere always enjoyed a scene. This was an especially enjoyable one. Everyone said “Oh” in horrified delight, and Red Ronnet, who was inclined to coarseness, guffawed heartily. Alys stared open-mouthed at the tableau and her eyes grew glassy with tears.

Gendry stalked down from the high seat and laid his hand heavily on Brienne’s shoulder.

“M’Lady Brienne, is there a problem?” he said in confusion.

Brienne returned no answer. It was asking too much flesh and blood to expect her to tell before the whole hall that Hyle’s toast had been no more than a throwback to the veiled insults she’d endured in Renly’s camp. _Brienne the Beauty, indeed!_

“It was my fault, Ser Gendry. I think perhaps the lady felt I was teasing her,” Hyle confessed.

Gendry paid no heed to Hyle and focused all the more on her. The war had lent him a confidence and air of leadership he lacked when she had first met him. She supposed Gendry was much like the steel swords he smithed and only became stronger after being beaten and tempered in fire and ice.

“I am sorry to see my friend display such a temper in my hall,” he said quietly, in a tone too soft-spoken for those surrounding them to overhear. “Especially towards another of my vassals.”

Brienne met his pale blue eyes and she recollected that she owed her life to Gendry. It was a physical struggle, but eventually she forced her shoulders to relax and she smoothed the features of her face. “Perhaps, ser, I am humble to a fault. I should level no complaint at Ser Hyle.”

“Good,” breathed Gendry in a sigh of relief as he let a tight smile break his face. Keeping his hand on her shoulder, he turned them both towards the hall and exclaimed, “To the Lady Brienne! I was there as she stood against a full company of outlaws to defend the lives and honor of women and orphan children. You should be proud of this high lady of the Stormlands.”

The hall erupted in louder cheers than before, but Brienne noticed those that cheered loudest were the serving folk. Gendry led her to the high seat and bade her sit at his left, a place of honor to be sure, but the Maid of Tarth felt the flush creep up her neck all the same. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw Hyle move up the table to sit with his daughter. Oh, how she wished she could be there for their first conversation.

The rest of the meal she sat in silence at Gendry’s side. She did not cry nor hang her head in embarrassment. Anger was still too hot in her heart for that and it sustained her amid all her agony of humiliation. With resentful eyes and passion-red cheeks that seemed to make her freckles stand out even stronger, she met the eyes of some of the more sympathetic knights, like Ser Alyn Estermont and Ralph Buckler who, perhaps more than the others, knew more than most what a jest it was to hear Hunt praise her. They had been at Highgarden and Bitterbridge and both bore witness to that damnable wager. As for Hyle Hunt, she would not even look at him. She would NEVER give him the satisfaction again of knowing how he infuriated her.

When the meal was done Brienne marched down from the high table with head held high to collect Alys. Hyle tried to intercept her.

“My lady, I’m sorry if I upset you. It was an honest gesture, I vow.” He laid a hand lightly on her arm. “I owe you my life, my lady, more times than I care to count. And now you have my gratitude for taking in Alys when I have not a home in which to keep her.”

“I didn’t do it for you.” She wrenched away. “And I would thank you not to touch me.”

“It seems I shall never be done apologizing to you,” said Hyle with a look of annoyance on his face.

“I recollect you telling me you would not burden me with your daughter,” she reminded him softly.

“Well, as to that,” he began with another unbearable grin, “that was if you took my offer. But then I saw you rescue maidens across the Riverlands and knew you wouldn’t be able to resist saving a waif from a brothel. You always did play the knight in shining armor.”

Alys stood quietly between the two of them with hands clasped in front of her and darted her eyes between their faces, unsure of the cause of the tension but aware of it all the same. But the girl knew when to hold her tongue. Alys had learned, perhaps better than most children, not to come between a man and woman when they quarrel. Things were not always cheerful at the Secret Rose.

“Lady Brienne?” Alys asked quietly.

“Alys, I think it would be good for us both to retire for the evening. I feel the voyage was tiring for me. Now, be good and say good night to your father.”

Ser Hyle got down on one knee and hugged his daughter, watching Brienne over her shoulder as he did so. When he let her go, Brienne could see the shine to Alys’ eyes. It struck Brienne then that this was the first time he had held his daughter and she felt a pang of guilt over her behavior. She felt a hard lump in her throat and suddenly the loss of Lord Selwyn seemed rather fresh.

“Good night, Alys,” said Hyle as he ruffled the hair on the girl’s head. “You do just as Lady Brienne says. She’s the best woman there is in Westeros, and you would do well to learn from her.”

On the way back to the guest suites, Alys could not keep her tongue. She rambled on and on about what her father had said during supper. Hyle had asked her about the island and if she had friends and what Brienne had taught her so far. He expressed pleasure that she was learning to read and took it for granted that she was learning to use weapons.

“And, oh, my lady Brienne,” she uttered, bouncing on her toes in the bedchamber as they readied for bed, “my father said the most wonderful things about you. He told me all about your magic sword and how you killed three monstrous evil men that ambushed you and how you wandered all over Westeros protecting maidens. Is this the magic sword?”

Alys tugged on the hilt of her sword, and Brienne stilled her hand and unsheathed it for her. “This is not my magic sword. That one was called ‘Oathkeeper’, but it resides in Winterfell now. Most Valyrian blades were left in the North after the wars to better prepare for the return of the Others-may they never come again. This one was forged by Ser Gendry after the war.”

“What do you call it? All the best swords have names, you know.”

“I, I have not named this one,” came Brienne’s answer.

“Oh,” said Alys, losing interest in a sword that was not magic after all. “My father also said that you saved his life-and that of Podrick’s-from an evil cave witch, and that you’re like a hero from a book of tales. He said that when I’m older and learn my history, he’ll tell me all about the battles you’ve fought and all about your mighty deeds.”

Alys picked at the hem of her tunic and studied the embroidery for a few minutes. “Lady Brienne, can I ask you something?”

Brienne just pinched the bridge of her nose, steeling herself for whatever harebrained question Alys would ask next.

“You don’t like my father very much, do you?”

“He-“ Brienne paused to find the words and finally settled on the same explanation she gave to Podrick all those years ago. “At Highgarden, when King Renly called his banners, some men played a game with me. Ser Hyle was one of them. It was a cruel game, hurtful and unchivalrous.”

“Oh, Lady Brienne, I’m so sorry. Did he hurt you? Like the men used to hurt the women at the Rose?”

“No, Alys,” she answered. _The girl may be flighty, but she’s seen more than most and has a keen mind._ “He never hurt me that way, just my pride was wounded.”

“But surely he’s apologized.”

“Yes.”

“Like I apologized to Septa Roelle.”

Brienne was taken aback. “Some things can’t be forgiven, Alys,” she said with a rush and then turned away.

The next few days consisted of meeting with the other lords regarding trade and discussing the patrol ships that help to keep the Stormlands free from raiders. Mostly, they ironed out details regarding the provisioning of the watch towers on Tarth. It was Brienne’s duty to keep the Straits of Tarth safe, but the other Storm Lords contributed to their upkeep as they all benefitted from safe trade.

When Hyle Hunt had free hours, he spent them with his daughter, which pleased Alys to no end. Often Brienne would join them in conversation and often found her reminiscing with Ser Hyle about knights they had known or speculate on the whereabouts of Meribald. She could put on a pleasant face for Alys’ sake. Three days hence, after they returned from walk on the battlements with Ser Hyle, Brienne found Alys sitting in the small adjoining bedchamber crying bitterly.

“What’s the matter now, Alys?” she asked.

“It’s about Daena,” sobbed Alys. “I love Daena so much, Brienne. I cannot ever live without her. These past few days watching you and Ser Gendry’s other vassals meet in council and listening to you and my father talk about old friends and laughing have been mortifying without her here. I feel so lonely here at Storm’s End. But I know very well when we grow up that Daena will get married and go away and leave me. And oh, what will I do then? I hate her husband-I just hate him furiously. I’ve been imagining it out-the wedding and everything-Daena dressed in her family’s cloak, with suede slippers and a damask dress, and looking as beautiful and regal as a queen; and me the handmaiden, with a lovely dress too but with a breaking heart hid beneath my smiling face. And then bidding Daena goodbye-e-e-e-” Here, Alys broke down entirely and wept with increasing bitterness.

Brienne turned quickly away to hide her twitching face; but it was no use; she collapsed on the nearest chair and burst into such a hearty and unusual peal of laughter that a chamber maid, passing by in the hall, halted in amazement. When had anyone heard Brienne laugh like that before-or at all?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used the quote about bastards from "Assassin's Apprentice" by Robin Hobb.


	13. Alys Goes to Lowtown with Tragic Results

The next month at Evenfall Hall passed beautifully as the herbs in the bailey bloomed golden as sunshine and the weirwood leaves grew a royal crimson and the wild cherry trees along the main road drooped heavily laden with fruit, all the while the fields of lavender waved in the sun beneath busy butterflies and pollen dusted bumble bees.

Alys reveled in the world of color about her.

“Oh, Brienne,” she exclaimed one morning after arms practice, coming dancing in with her arms full of blooms. “I’m so glad I lived to see the Spring come back into the world. I would be terrible if I had died before ever seeing Spring like my mother, wouldn’t it? Look at these orchids I brought from the barrens. Don’t they just thrill you? Please say I may decorate my chambers with them.”

Brienne just sniffed at her, momentarily forgetting her own childhood ramblings. “Bedrooms were made to sleep in.”

“Oh, and dream in, too, Brienne. And you know one can dream so much better in a room where there are pretty things. I’m going to put these stems in the old blue pitcher on my washstand.”

“Well, don’t drop any leaves on the stairs then. I’ll not have you making more work for the chamber maids. Maester Flint and I are riding over to Morningfall this afternoon, Alys, and we won’t be back until dark. There’ll be no lessons today, so you have a free afternoon if you want to go play with Daena. Just don’t forget that Septa Roelle will be up after supper to work on your needlepoint.”

“Oh! May we go to Lowtown to buy sweets? Podrick gave me two whole Copper Stars. And maybe some new ribbons that I can stitch onto my bodice? Mayn’t I?”

“You can ask her,” Brienne said, resigned to surrender to the girl’s pleading eyes.

“Oh, Brienne!” Alys clasped her hands. “How lovely! You understand me after all. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to take Daena to the market at the waterfront. It will seem so nice and grown-uppish. I’ll go ask Sara if I can use her basket.”

Alys flew through the gap in the curtain wall and traipsed north through the Barrens and up to the watchtower to ask Daena down to town. As a result just after Brienne and Flint had ridden beneath the portcullis, Daena walked down the road, arm in arm with Alys, wearing her second best dress. The sigil on her breast was a blue field with brown chevron and black watchtower.

The two girls took their time going to town and wandered along the footpath that hugged the stream. They followed it beneath the filmy branches of willow and clambered over the gnarled roots of an old alder that had grown to split a boulder. They picked the season’s first apples and lounged on the green mossy stones that lined the creek, dangling their feet in the cool water. Daena had much to show Alys about the stream, and some time was spent in skipping stones across a shady pool-or, in Alys’ case, throwing rocks into the water with a loud _thunk_.

Their ambling done, the girls found their way back to the main road and ran the last quarter mile down the hill into town. From this vantage point, they could see a few small boats bobbing their way back into the harbor, laden with the day’s catch. There were no trading cogs at the dock, but away off in the Straits, Alys could spy a few galleys sailing north with billowing sails. Daena informed her that the ships had full cargo holds and that she could tell by how low they sat in the water. Alys said they reminded her of Septa Roelle’s waddle. And with that, both girls giggled their way into the mercantile, copper stars weighing down her purse.

The shopkeeper smiled at the girls while they oohed over her merchandise and happily let them hold up various swaths of cloth before a mirror for effect. Daena talked Alys into some hair ribbons and after changing the copper stars for pennies, enthusiastically braided them in her friend’s hair. The plaits were more complicated that Alys was used to, and she spun repeatedly in front of the looking glass admiring how the ends curled around her face as she turned.

Leaving the shop, Alys felt the rest of her coppers weighing down her coin purse.  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Perry the older boy Maester Flint was tutoring, walk into the Broken Mast. He always complained during lessons that he’d rather drink at the tavern with the other off duty soldiers. Perry must have been taking advantage of his off afternoon just like Alys. It didn’t take long for Daena to convince Alys they should follow him inside.

The girls squeezed in on the end of a bench across from Perry. The trestle table was filled with dark skinned sailors. There was a swan ship, the Summer Siren, docked in the small harbor, with some of the crew on shore leave: Huck and Pino, Cy and Ben, Yora and Beck. Perry pulled a face at them, but two of the sailors raised their mugs at Daena in salute. The Barrens watchtower was well regarded by the sea folk. There was many a foggy night that the warm glow from their signal fire guided a boat safely around the treacherous point at the north of the isle. Daena just laughed at the saluting sailors, signaled for two more mugs, and toasted the swarthy looking boatmen in turn.

Alys watched as intently as ever with eyes wide and mouth shut as she tried her best to soak in every bit of the evening. There was a simple camaraderie among the folk at the Broken Mast, and she felt at ease in a way she hadn’t at the Secret Rose. Quick-witted as ever, she laughed when Daena laughed and smirked when Perry smirked, and hid her shy smile behind her ale cup as she listened to the bawdy tales of the tavernfolk or sea faring tales that made her shiver in wonder.

Cy, the ship’s boy on the Summer Siren, bashfully offered a share of his grouper. The stew was thick and creamy, with lumps of potatoes and turnips to complement the fish. Alys was still becoming accustomed to the taste of salt fish, but found this stew paired well with the crusty brown bread and yellow butter set at table.

The ale tasted sweet, sweeter than the wine they’d served at the brothel. It made the time pass swiftly for the girls as they reveled in the amusing company of the Broken Mast. The sailors from the Siren left, but local fishermen came on their heels with a smile and joined their table. Perry bought a whole jug of the ale for their table and Alys poured herself out a sizeable draught till her mug overflowed. She looked at the amber colored drops admiringly as they beaded on the table, then leaned forward and slurped a mouthful from the brim.

“This is awfully nice ale, Perry, don’t you think?” said Alys before burying her nose in her cup again. “I didn’t know ale was so sweet. The wine at the Secret Rose was always so bitter. It was very kind of you to get a pitcher for all of us.”

Perry ignored Alys’ slurred words and tipped the brim of his hat at Daena. “I’m real glad you came in to the tavern, Daena. This day turned out just right, you know, as old Flinty cancelled his lessons and I have a pretty girl to share a pint with.”

Daena turned her shoulder in Perry’s direction and focused on Alys. “It’s the nicest I ever drank,” she said. “It’s ever so much nicer than what my ma brews, although our sworn swords like it well enough, I guess. It doesn’t taste a bit like hers.”

“Oh, I should think the Broken Mast has better ale than your mother-no disrespectin’ of course-as Lowtown has reg’lar shipments from the orchards of the Reach. Lady Margaery told me so herself,” said Alys knowingly. “Of course, Daena, your ma is famous for her herbals, so’s there’s that. Do you know Septa Roelle has been teaching me all she knows of herbs and poultices? I’m terribly awful at it now, though. The last time I made a paste for rash, I forgot to add the jewelweed. I was thinking the loveliest story about you and me, Daena. I imagined you were ill with greyscale and everybody deserted you, but I went boldly to your bedside and nursed you back to life; and then I took the greyscale and died and I was buried in the Stranger’s Gullet by the bridge and you planted a rosebush by my grave and watered it with your tears; and you never, never forgot the friend of your youth who sacrificed her life for you. Oh, it was such a pathetic tale, Daena. The tears just rained down over my cheeks while I mixed the paste of herbs. But I forgot the jewelweed and the poultice was a dismal failure. Jewelweed is so essential to poultices, you know. Septa Roelle was very cross and I don’t wonder. I’m a great trial to her and Lady Brienne. Sara was terribly mortified about the lamb gravy last week, too. We had lamb in thick brown gravy for dinner and there was half the meat and a pitcherful of gravy left over. Sara said there was enough for another meal and Brienne said I could help Sara put things to rights. The cook set me to put it in the pantry and cover it. I meant to cover it just as much as could be, Daena, but when I carried it in I was imagining I was a Silent Sister-of course I could never join the Faith being a bastard and all but I imagined it-taking the veil to bury a broken heart in cloistered silent seclusion with only the dead for company; and I forgot all about covering the gravy. I thought of it the next morning and ran to the pantry. Daena, imagine if you can my extreme horror at finding a mouse drowned in that gravy! I lifted the mouse out with a spoon and threw it out in the godswood and then I washed the spoon in three waters. Sara was at the kitchen hearth with the morning’s baking and I fully intended to ask her when she came in if I’d give the sauce to the pigs; but when she finished putting the last of the loaves in to bake I was imagining I was one of the Children of the Forest going through the godswood speckled by the morning light filtering in through the canopy, so I never thought about the gravy again. Well, Ser Gendry and Lady Arya came from the Stormlands here that very afternoon. You know they’re very imposing people, half the stories whisper their names, and I was quite struck by their presence. When Briene called to the great hall dinner was all ready and everybody was at the table. I tried to be as polite and dignified as I could be, for I wanted Lady Arya to think I was a ladylike little girl even if I wasn’t pretty like her. Everything went right until I saw Sara coming with the platter of lamb medallions in one hand and the pitcher of gravy warmed up in the other. Daena, that was a terrible moment. I remembered everything and I just stood up in my place and shrieked out, ‘Sara, you mustn’t use that gravy! There was a mouse drowned in it. I forgot to tell you before.’ Oh, Daena, I shall never forget that awful moment if I life to be a hundred. Lady Arya just LOOKED at me and I thought I would sink to the floor with mortification. And then Ser Gendry LAUGHED at me and Brienne turned red as fire so that her freckles seemed to multiply and Sara only just turned in a tight circle and disappeared in the kitchen to come back with a new platter with honeyed chicken. She put some on my plate, but I couldn’t swallow a mouthful. It was like heaping coals of fire on my head, I was so shamed that I ran upstairs to my room. After Gendry and Arya left, Brienne gave me a dreadful scolding, but Podrick confided that Lady Arya PUSHED Gendry and called him a stupid boy and that everyone shared their own stories from when they were children. Apparently Lady Arya had done all SORTS of nonsense when she was my age and it made me feel ever so much better about it all. Why Daena, what is the matter?”

Daena and Perry both stared silently over Alys’ shoulder, expressions frozen and eyes wide.

“Alys Flowers!” boomed Brienne’s voice from the doorway of the Broken Mast. “What is the meaning of this? I returned from Morningfall and found Septa Roelle in a fine temper waiting for you. I have half the keep out with torches looking for you. And Daena, can you explain this behavior?”

Alys stood up very unsteadily; then she sat down again, putting her hands to her head. “I’m, I’m awfully sick,” she said, a little thickly. “Brienne, can you take me home?”

Brienne marched over to the table, and suddenly the tavern emptied of its complement of drunken sailors and soldiers. She loomed over the tipsy girls, and for once, Daena Barrens did not laugh.

“I must go home,” said Daena. She tried to step away from the table, but Brienne was faster than the wobbly girl and gripped her tight above the elbow.

“Daena Barrens, when I ask you a question I want to be answered. Face me this very minute and tell me what the two of you are doing in a tavern drinking with the likes of seamen and fisherfolk and soldiers. What would your mother say?”

Daena stared blankly at Brienne, too afraid to speak.

“Out with it!”

“It-it was only Perry-” and here Daena turned to find that the young soldier had slipped out the back door through the kitchens-“and I didn’t know that Alys didn’t have the head for ale. She’d told me she drank wine all the time when she lived with her mother. Honest, Lady Brienne, I meant no harm.”

“You, girl, have gotten Alys DRUNK and disgraced my house. You are nothing but a wicked little girl, and I’ll be sure to have words with Dalla about your behavior and let her know that you’re never to play with Alys again.”

And with those fateful words, Brienne scooped Alys up and tossed her over her shoulder, unwilling to let the tipsy child walk out on her own feet-especially not now that she spied the telltale signs of a tearful tantrum on Alys’ face. She stormed out of the Broken Mast, set the crying child on her horse, climbed up behind her, and headed up the road to Evenfall.

“Lady Brienne!” cried Alys, thoroughly despondent. “My heart is just broken. Daena didn’t mean to get me drunk. I poured the drinks myself from Perry’s pitcher. Oh, Brienne, you just CAN’T forbid me to see Daena again, not after we swore vows of friendship!”

“Stop being foolish,” Brienne sniffed. “You wouldn’t even have set foot in this place without the Barrens girl encouraging you. She’s a bad influence, that’s what. I should keep you on a tighter rein, is all. Oh-” she said to herself “-what will Septa Roelle have to say about tonight’s behavior? She already feels I’m unfit to mother a child. Ugh, this will be a nice story for those folks who already are down on me for wearing armor and carrying weapons. This is just what the gossips need, more evidence that I’m not a real woman. _An eleven year old girl-DRUNK!_ ”

Alys began to squirm and wriggle where she perched on the pommel of Brienne’s saddle. “I’m awful dizzy. Please, Lady Brienne, let me down.”

Brienne halted her horse and before she could dismount, Alys slid down the horse’s withers in the most ungainly manner and immediately began to retch. Alys made alternating sounds of heaving and crying and, after many minutes, Brienne was sure the girl had disgorged her evening’s meal of grouper stew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you miss it, I updated two chapters tonight.


	14. A New Interest in Life

The next month Alys, bending over her patchwork where she lounged on the sunwarmed top of the north curtain wall, happened to glance out and beheld Daena beckoning mysteriously down by the great limestone boulders they affectionately named the Mammoths. In a trice Alys was out the the bailey wall and flying down to the Barrens, astonishment and hope struggling in her expressive eyes. But the hope faded when she saw Daena's dejected countenance and remembered her promise to Lady Brienne.

"My foster mother hasn't relented," she gasped and shook her head mournfully. "Oh, Daena, she says I'm never to play with you again. I've cried and cried and I told her it wasn't your fault, but it wasn't any use. I had ever such a time slipping past her without being seen just to come out and say good-bye to you. I should be back by dinner, so I don't have much time."

Daena gave a depressed laugh and looked to the sky, judging the time. "I'd say a quarter hour is hardly long enough to say an eternal farewell in," she said tearfully.

"Oh, Daena, will you promise faithfully never to forget me, the friend of your youth, no matter what dearer friends may come to love you?"

"Indeed I will," sobbed Daena, "and I'll never have a more beloved friend-I don't want to love another. I couldn't love anybody as I love you."

"Oh, Daena," cried Alys, clasping her hands, "do you LOVE me?"

"Why, of course I do. Didn't you know that?"

"No." Alys drew a long breath. "I thought you liked me, of course, but I never hoped you LOVED me. Why, Daena, I didn't think anybody could love me. Nobody ever has loved me since I can remember. Oh, this is wonderful! It's a ray of light which will forever shine on the darkness of a path severed from you, Daena. Oh, just say it once again."

"I love you devotedly, Alys," said Daena with a hearty laugh, "and I always will, you may be sure of that."

"And I will always love you, Daena," said Alys, solemnly extending her hand. "In the years to come my memory of you will shine like a star over my lonely life. Will you give me a lock of your hair so I may treasure it forever?"

"Have you got anything to cut it with?" queried Daena, wiping away the tears which Alys' passion had caused to flow afresh and returning to practicalities.

"Yes. I've my kitchen knife rolled under my apron hem," said Alys. She solemnly clipped one of Daena's curls. "Fare well, my beloved. Although we must be as strangers living side by side on this treacherous island, my heart will ever be faithful to you."

Daena drew close for a last embrace, but then suddenly grabbed Alys by the shoulders. "Alys! I think I know of a way for us to still talk, although Lady Brienne says we must be parted."

Alys hugged her close, tears welling in her eyes. "Oh, Daena, tell me your idea. I couldn't bear not speaking with you again."

And so Daena proceeded to tell her idea of using the signal fire atop the Barrens watchtower at night to send messages. Alys listened closely to her instructions and thanked the Maiden that she'd already taken to roaming the battlements at night before being sent to bed. No one would think anything of finding Alys loitering on the north side of Evenfall's crenellations at night.

Finally, after frenzied planning, Alys stood and watched Daena out of sight, mournfully waving her hand to the latter whenever she turned to look back. Then she returned to the keep, not a little consoled for the time being by this romantic parting.

"It is all over," she informed Brienne. "I shall never have another friend. I'm really worse off than ever before, for I haven't even the other whores of the Rose to keep me company. And even if I had it wouldn't be the same. Somehow, the thought of them are not satisfying after a real friend. We had such a nice farewell down by the Mammoth boulders. It will be sacred in my memory forever. Daena gave me a lock of her hair and I'm going to sew it up in a little bag and wear it around my neck all my life. Please see that it is buried with me, for I don't believe I'll live very long. Perhaps when you see me lying dead and cold you may feel remorse for what you have done and will perhaps let Daena come to my funeral."

"I don't think there is much fear of you dying of grief as long as you can talk, Alys," said Brienne unsympathetically.

The following morning, Brienne surprised Alys by going into the bailey with Jasper and Podrick all dressed up in her formal gambeson and her armor trunk loaded on the back of a wagon.

"I'm going to Storm's End for the tourney season, Alys," she announced.

"Mayn't I come? If I am staying, who will help you with your armor?"

"That's why I'm taking Jasper with me. You better work hard for Thistle and Flint. If I hear any more tales of you headed down to the Broken Mast, you'll wish Lady Margaery had never bought you from that brothel. Behave yourself and do everything that Podrick and Roelle tell you."

"I'll try," agree Alys dolefully. "There won't be much fun at Evenfall without you and Jasper, I expect."

The voyage was uneventful, but Brienne was welcomed back to Storm's End with open arms. Her battle prowess had been missed at the first day of the games, and there were several who clamored for the right to meet her at the lists to test their mettle. The Tyrells were in residence, and Margaery insisted they sup together that very evening of her arrival. Jasper's mother Lady Cerene Buckler was also there with her husband, which excited Brienne's new squire to no end to see his family again.

It wasn't only Brienne's friends that appreciated her. When Brienne went to her seat in the great hall, she found at her place setting a blue plume. She picked it up and admired it but then she remembered a similar feather given as a gift by Hyle some years back. Brienne dropped the plume as if it were a red-hot coal and ostentatiously wiped her fingers on her trousers. The feather lay untouched on the table until the end of supper when Jasper Buckler picked it up and strung it through the neck of his tunic and claimed it as his own as a way to sport Tarth's colors. Ser Gendry's gift of a new dagger, gorgeously folded steel with a leather wrapped hilt and moonstone pommel, which he presented during dinner in front of the other guests, met with a more favorable reception. Brienne was graciously pleased to accept it and rewarded Gendry with a smile, for once not even self-conscious about her gapped and crooked teeth.

Margaery graciously invited Brienne to stay in the Tyrell pavilion for the duration of the games, and she had to admit that she enjoyed it immensely. She was surrounded at once by the tittering laughter and gentle appraisal of more than a dozen of Lady Margaery’s cousins and hangers on, finding suddenly that she’d missed the company of women on Tarth. Oh, Roelle and Sara and Jule were well enough, she supposed, but there were no women of nobility near her age at Evenfall Hall. _Was this how Alys felt? Alone?_ Listening closely to the constant hum of voices, Brienne picked out individual threads of conversation and realized the Tyrell women were quite astute, despite the appearance of frivolity.

If she admitted it to herself, it was a surreal experience. Her mind flashed to another pavilion with another court. Seven years ago, she stood at attention in her shining new blue armor and rainbow cloak, honored to be King Renly’s shield. Oh, how she had envied Margaery then for her marriage. Lady Margaery was still in the flower of her youth then, her slender form ripening to gentle curves. Her soft chestnut curls hung loose on past her shoulders and she wore a wreath of apple blossoms on her brow. The years had treated her well, and Margaery was still a young woman at twenty two, with now a bit of wisdom shining from her brown eyes.

“How is the waif?” Margaery asked with a raised eyebrow. “I must confess, I didn’t think I would survive the trip with her. She near talked me to death on the sea voyage from Old Town.”

“Well enough, though you could have warned me that the plans to send a page boy had changed,” accused Brienne.

“What fun would that have been?” she answered with a smirk. “Ser Hyle was so certain your motherly instincts would have insisted upon her rescue, and I quite concur.”

“Hyle Hunt can go sit on a treble hook for all I care.”

“Oh?” was all Margaery said. “Either way, I’ll say it looks as if it agrees with you.”

She felt her face flush, and in habit, reached a hand up to cover the scars on her cheek. Margaery just reached out and stilled her movement with a touch, giving a slight shake of her head. The kindness in her eyes led Brienne to lower her hand once more.

“I should say your new position looks as though it agrees with you as well,” said Brienne.

“Just a small recognition towards my family,” Margaery explained with a flick of her hand. “You know the queen is very grateful to her true friends that stood by her father during Robert’s Rebellion.”

“Shouldn’t you be at Kings Landing then?” Brienne asked.

“Why should I not be here?” Margaery countered.

“Well, I should think the Mistress of Coin might be at the capital to oversee the treasury,” Brienne said.

Lady Margaery just laughed. “And where do you think the coin comes from? These games are important to the economy, Brienne. Look around, and what do you see? You see steel and dust and horseflesh. I see bakers and washerwomen and farmers with their carts, all here to make a fortune in a fortnight. I may collect the taxes, but you can’t squeeze coins from an empty purse.”

Brienne noticed not a few of those food carts bore the stamp of the golden rose on a green field.

The next morning, Brienne pessimistically expected trouble when the tourney began in earnest, since she had only her dismal prior experience at Bitterbridge by which to judge. But none developed. She flung herself in the contests with heart and soul, determined not to be outdone in any category. A rivalry between her and Ser Hyle soon became apparent, though it was entirely good natured on Hyle's side; but it is much to be feared that the same thing cannot be said of Brienne, who had certainly an unpraiseworthy tenacity for holding grudges. She was as intense in her hatreds as in her loves. She would not stoop to admit that she meant to rival Hyle in the games, because that would have been to acknowledge his existence which Brienne persistently ignored in the absence of his daughter Alys; but the rivalry was there and honors fluctuated between them. Now Hyle was ahead in the joust, now Brienne topped the other knights at the halberd, with a smashing of her latest opponent.

One awful day their sigils were hung together on the tree of shields. It was almost as bad as the day she left Tarly's tent with the knowledge of the wager, and Brienne's mortification was as evident as Hyle's satisfaction. When Hyle was knocked from the melee early in the mock battle and Brienne won the day, her triumph was marred by the fact that Hyle congratulated her heartily before all of Gendry's court. It would have been ever so much sweeter to her if he had felt the sting of his defeat. It wasn't nearly as satisfying to best him as it was to knock Connington and the others on their backsides at Bitterbridge.

Gendry might not be very experienced at being a liege lord; but a warrior so inflexibly determined to win every bout as Brienne was could hardly escape making a reputation for ruthlessness on the field. So by the end of the competition, Brienne was awarded nail money by Ser Gendry and the Tyrells invited them all to the tournament in Highgarden for the next month. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Overly dramatic Alys is pure, unaltered Anne Shirley in this interaction with Daena. L.M. Montgomery was a genius.


	15. Alys to the Rescue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor edits have been made to the previous chapter-namely, Podrick did not go to Storm's End with Brienne and Jasper.

All things great are wound up with all things little. At first glance it might not seem that the decision of certain lord of the Stormlands to hold a tourney could have much or anything to do with the fortunes of little Alys Flowers at Evenfall Hall. But it had.

It was some few months after Alys' arrival on Tarth that Gendry had invited Brienne and the other Storm lords to his castle for a summer of games, and the Maid of Tarth had been eager to participate. Most of the Storm lords were in attendance. Hence on the night in question, most of the knights of Tarth were away off on the mainland, eager to win the purse or partake of the general festivities. This left Alys and Podrick alone at Evenfall Hall with the servants until the following week at the end of the tournament.

As a result, while Brienne and Jasper were enjoying themselves immensely at the joust and the melee, Alys and Podrick had the cheerful kitchen to themselves kept company only by Sara and one scullery maid while a storm thrashed the thick, sturdy walls of Evenfall Hall. A bright fire was glowing in the hearth and a Three Sisters' stew simmered in an old dented copper pot. Podrick nodded over the local gossip gleaned from Sara and Alys at the broad plank table studied her reading lessons with much more fervor than up in Flint's tower. She interrupted the squire a number of times to ask him pertinent questions about the history she pored over.

“Podrick, did you ever study the War of the Ninepenny Kings?”

“Well now, no, I didn’t exactly,” said Podrick, stumbling over his words a bit.

“I wish you had,” sighed Alys, “because then you’d be able to sympathize with me. You can’t sympathize properly if you’ve never studied it. It is casting a cloud over my whole life. I’m such a dunce at history, Podrick.”

“Well, I guess that I know some things about that war,” he began, and Alys quickly found that Pod had quite a bit to say about the timeline of the War of the Ninepenny Kings, which seemed oft punctuated with references to 'broken men' and tales of a wandering septon.

Sometime after Pod’s impromptu history lesson, Alys imagination began to wander once more.

“I wonder how Brienne and Jasper are enjoying themselves in Storm’s End. I’m ever so envious. I would have LOVED to see Lady Margaery again. Septa Roelle says the kingdoms are shaping up now that there’s sensible women in charge. She says there’s soon to be a blessed change. What do you think, Podrick?”

“Well, now, I guess if the queen’s as honorable as Ser-I mean my Lady-Brienne, then we can expect things to be better,” said Podrick promptly. He’d been a staunch defender of Brienne’s suitability for years now.

“Then I think so too,” said Alys decidedly. “Though I’ve never met the queen. Maester Flint is ever so grumpy about all the women making decisions at court and says so during our lessons, but Lady Brienne says such nice things about the Small Council.”

“As well she should,” Sara chimed in, smacking her spatula lightly on Alys’ book. “Lady Brienne is a right smart lady and she recognizes common sense when she sees it. If you ask me, our lady queen is absolutely practical. What with her and the knowin’ of which ladies know best and who should sit on the council. I still say our Maid should have a seat up there at the Red Keep, but Brienne is too modest, that girl. Old Lord Selwyn would be proud of her, that’s what.  So don’t you listen to Ol’ Flinty,” Sara finished, with a good shake of the spatula under Alys’ nose. “He might have the knowin’ of who went to war when but he does no’ have the sense to know when a woman knows better’n him.”

As the evening wore down, Podrick excused himself from the hall and wandered down the road to the garrison despite the steady drizzle. Brienne of Tarth was ever disapproving of him indulging in drink, and Sara would be sure to carry tales if he drank ale at the keep. So Pod joined the island’s soldiers in a bit of late night revelry where no one made much of the fact that he never had much to say.

Alys, left to her own devices, crept up to the battlements after sunset. This was her usual haunt now and tonight’s sentry, Ben, paid no heed to the little girl, even though the evening had grown stormy and cold with the trade winds. She clambered up next to the watchtower’s firebox and peered north, searching for the telltale signs of her friend. She didn’t have long to wait.

Their code was simple. Daena had devised a pattern of flashes by holding a screen before the light. The screen was only held between the two towers, Evenfall and the Barrens, so as not to interfere with the signal seen from the sea. Normally, their messages were about simple things-a new fishing hole discovered or a strange visitor at the hall. Tonight was no different. Alys told her knowingly of the current politics as succinctly as Cook Sara and patiently decrypted the returning flashes to hear of the new poultice recipe Daena’s mother had created. There came a long wait only punctuated by lightning flashing over the headland. Then Daena’s messages came all in a rush.

Alys almost bowled over Ben in her rush to go back downstairs. She gave a hurried explanation that left the guard’s head reeling in confusion before she was off and down the steps. He peered over the inner wall and spotted only a pale blur as the girl sprinted across the bailey into the stables. Sara barely made it to the door of the keep to call into the night after her, but Alys didn’t answer. She rode low on the bareback of Sooty as they thundered out under the portcullis and down the road.

Alys reached the garrison in what seemed like hours or moments, she was unsure. Her hollers from the yard pulled the soldiers from their drink and a few piled out into the flickering torchlight.

“Shipwreck. The Barrens. All hands NOW!”

And then she was off. It was quicker to abandon Sooty and tread overland across the clints and grikes of the limestone barrens than it was to go around the long ways on the road.

When she came upon the Barrens watchtower, the few sworn swords were not to be seen. She followed the echo of their shouts and gingerly stepped her way down the treacherous bluffs to the teeming waves around the headland. Below, she found them at work. Here and there, a face, the pale arm, the ghostly form of a flapping sail. All was illuminated in every flash of lightning.

“Daena! DAENA!” And she found her.

Black hair and eyes and white skin, Daena looked like some sort of sea witch or siren from the tales. Her skirts were torn free, leaving her legs bare. The jet black waves of her hair whipped around her head and took on the dark greenish tinge of sea kelp in the fey light.

The two little girls linked hands and hastened out onto the rocks, trusting in one another to keep their balance and prevent them from tumbling into the storm surge. They followed the cries in the night, surrounded by the two watchtower soldiers who waded into the surf with torches held high.

“What do I do?” asked Alys.

“Hold on. We make a chain,” Daena explained. “Every time we find a person, they follow our linked hands and go to shore.”

Anne went to work promptly, following Daena’s lead in everything. By the time they’d found the third sailor tossed up on the rocks, Alys was almost blinded by the sting of rain in her eyes. Finally, Podrick and the men from the garrison arrived and Daena sent Alys back to shore with a push.

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Alys, but you’ll be more useful on the shore,” Daena ordered. “Water. They need island water-not sea water. Go up to the rain barrel and you need to boil as much as you can. Once you have a nice kettle going-make sure the fire is down here on the shoreline-fetch the flannels and felts and wool from the footlocker in the base of the tower. Keep the fire roaring.”

It was near dawn when Podrick pulled the last of the water logged sailors from the jagged rocks. Two more leaned on Daena’s thin shoulders as they limped over the barnacle encrusted boulders. In the wan light of morning, Alys finally saw that Daena walked barefoot over the jagged stones. With each step, cuts glowed red with fresh bleeding, but the blood washed clean away with every wave.

The tide was out, and there was a good spit of land with a roaring bonfire and water logged seamen clustered as near as could be without setting themselves on fire. Most were too weak to make the trek up to the Barrens watchtower and slumped wearily in exhaustion. Altogether, Daena and her soldier boys had pulled 63 souls from the waves and more than a dozen bodies.

“I was awfully near giving up in despair,” explained Alys. “The waves were violent and the wind blew so angrily it was nigh impossible to hear their cries for help. I actually thought Daena drowned at one point when I saw her slip on an algae patch and disappear beneath the foam. But in about three minutes she surfaced and coughed up the Straits, squaring her shoulders and climbing back up on the rocky causeway. You must imagine my relief, Podrick, because I can’t express it in words. You know there are some things that cannot be expressed in words.”

“Yes, I know,” nodded Podrick. He looked at Alys as if he were thinking some things about her and Daena that couldn’t be expressed in words. Later on, however, he made sure to express them to Brienne when she returned from the mainland.

Alys had gone home in the wonderful, rosy hued summer morning, heavy eyed from loss of sleep, but still talking unweariedly to Podrick as they crossed the bridge over the Stranger’s Gullet and walked under the spreading apple blossoms. Along the way, they collected Sooty who grazed contentedly at sweetgrass and clover near the limestone barrens.

“Oh, Podrick, isn’t it a wonderful morning? The world looks like something the Maiden imagined for her own pleasure, doesn’t it? Or perhaps the Drowned God, considering last night. Those trees look as if I could blow them away with a breath-poof! I’m so glad I live in a world where there are apple blossoms. I can’t remember flowers from before the Long Night. It seems before I came to Tarth it was always Winter. I’m so glad now that Lady Brienne said I couldn’t play with Daena anymore. If she hadn’t, we never would have sneaked talking by way of the signal fires. But, oh, Podrick, I’m so sleepy. I can’t go to arms practice with Thistle at the garrison tomorrow. I just know I couldn’t keep my eyes open and I’d be so stupid and slow with the weapons. But I hate to stay home, for Thistle promised she’d teach me the bow tomorrow, and I’ve wanted to learn to be a Tarth archer ever so much since I moved here, and it will be so hard to get up again, don’t you suppose?”

Pod, who labored under the same level of weariness as the girl, said, “Well now, I guess you’ll manage all right.” He looked at Alys’ peaked face and dark shadows under her eyes. “You just go right to sleep and I’ll tell Thistle she must teach you the bow another day.”

Alys accordingly went to bed and slept so long and soundly that it was well on in the heat of the afternoon that she awoke.

“That little raven haired girl they have over at the Barrens is as smart and brave as they make them,” Podrick said to Brienne later. “I tell you, Ser, she saved some twenty odd men that night before I even got there with the garrison. She seems to have a skill and presence of mind that I scarcely see in grown men, much less a child her age. I never saw anything like the sight of her scrabbling over those rocks like some sea creature from the tales pulling the men from the surf. And you would be proud of Alys, too. She rode like Stranger himself to get help and then took over the operations from the beach to help warm up the survivors.”

“Hmph,” came Brienne’s answer.

“It reminded me not a little of Willow. You remember Jeyne’s sister, right?

Jasper and Brienne-who had arrived home from the mainland just that morning-were sitting over cups of tea murmuring in awed tones over the tale Podrick told to them.

“You’ve returned! Did you win the purse at Storm’s End?” asked Alys at once when she descended to the kitchen. “What did Willas look like? Is he as handsome as Loras?”

“Well, he’s well read and good to his animals,” Brienne stated matter of factly. “You may have some lemon cakes, Alys. Sara made them special for you. Podrick was telling us about last night. I must say it was fortunate you knew what to do when you received Daena’s message. I wouldn’t have known of the wreck until the next day, for we don’t use the signal fires that way. There now, never mind talking till you’ve had dinner. I can tell by the look of you that you’re just full up with speeches, but they’ll keep till you’ve eaten.”

Brienne had something to tell Alys, but she did not tell it just then for she knew if she did Alys’ consequent excitement would remove all appetite for dinner. Not until Alys had finished her third lemon cake did Brienne say:

“I went up to see Dalla Barrens this afternoon, Alys. I wanted to see Daena, but her mother wouldn’t wake her up on any account. She says you roused the soldiers to help save the shipwrecked folk, but Podrick and the guard Ben both tell me that it was Daena that sent you the coded message about the ship. You’ll need to teach me your cipher, Alys. It’s plain as day how useful it can be for short quick messages. I want you to know that I feel both of you girls helped save lives last night and I’m very sorry I acted the way I did about the ale at the Broken Mast. I know Daena didn’t set out to get you drunk, and I hope you forgive me-as Dalla has forgiven me for judging her daughter so harshly. Daena and her mother and brothers are to come for supper in the hall, but she cannot come this evening on the account of a dreadful cold she caught last night in the sea. Now, Alys Flowers, for Mother’s sake, don’t have a fit.”

The warning seemed not unnecessary, so uplifted and aerial was Alys’ expression and attitude as she sprang to her feet, her face irradiated with the flame of her spirit.

“Oh, Brienne, can I go to see her right now? I’ll have breakfast when I come back, but I couldn’t possibly eat right now as I’m so thrilled.”

Brienne just sighed and shook her head in annoyance. “Yes, yes-GO!” she said indulgently. “Alys Flowers, are you daft? Come back here and put on some shoes. Podrick, just look at her. She’s gone barefoot out the bailey door. It will be a mercy if she doesn’t come back with cut and mangled feet.”

Alys came dancing home in the purple twilight across the limestone plateau. Afar in the west was the great shimmering evening star in the sky that was pale golden and rose hued over the slate colored ashlars of Evenfall Hall. The hushed murmur of the waves at the base of the cliffs drifted on the sea wind like a lullaby, but its music was not sweeter than the song in Alys’ heart.

“You see before you a perfectly happy person, Lady Brienne,” she announced. “I’m perfectly happy. I cried so sweetly and hugged Dalla Barrens and said how sorry I was that Daena got in trouble for going to the tavern with me. Some of the sailors were still there at the guardtower and said they could never repay me or Daena for saving them. See? I have this little wooden whistle from Garth and this net with tiny beads from Tilly. And there are so many other little treasures that the crew gave to the folk at the Barrens for being saved from the Drowned God. Isn’t that a pretty way to end things? Daena and I had a lovely afternoon. She’s quite recovered from the cold she got from the sea last night. We walked along the beachfront recovering all the flotsam from the wreck and she said the crew will try to salvage what they can as soon as their well. You can just see the stern poking up over the waves at the tip of the causeway. Daena gave me some of her needlepoint, see it? It says ‘If you love me as I love you, nothing but death can part us two.’ And that is true, Brienne. Thistle said she’ll spare a guardsman so that Daena doesn’t have watch duty so much and she can start coming down to arms practice at the garrison some days. Isn’t that splendid? Oh, it gave me such a thrill. Dalla Barrens used her best crockery while I ate with them. Nobody every used their best crockery for me before. Even you make me use the everyday tin plates. We had seaweed stew, and I didn’t mind one bit even though I don’t like the taste of it. The poor souls pulled from the wreck all ate the other foodstuffs before I even arrived, so I didn’t mind too much. After dinner, Daena and I made blood pudding. We went up to the signal fire to eat up in the clouds and then set it out to let it cool, but we forgot about it. A gull flew down and walked on it so it had to be thrown away. But it was still terrific fun. Then when I came home Dalla Barrens asked me to come over as often as I could and Daena walked with me as far as the Mammoth Boulders and thew kisses to me as I walked the rest of the way down to the north curtain wall. I assure you, Brienne, that I feel like praying to the Crone tonight. I think she sent the cipher with the watch towers to us as inspiration especially so we could save that ship’s crew. I’m going to think out a special brand-new prayer in honor of the occasion. Could we go to the sept tomorrow?”

As Alys continued to prattle on, Brienne turned to her squire and said simply, “Let Cook Sara know to turn out the larder and send food stuffs up to the Barrens to feed the shipwrecked crew and have the harbormaster come meet with me tomorrow morning so we can begin arrangements to send these folk onward.”

"Yes Ser-I mean, my Lady," he said with a nod.


	16. A Tournament and a Tragedy

Brienne set the messenger scroll down on her desk and massaged her temples. She glanced up at her squire- _could she call him her squire when she'd never sworn the vows herself?_ -and saw him preoccupied with another dusty volume from Maester Flint's tower. Podrick had taken up with books when still in Tyrion Lannister's employ and indulged himself in the habit in his free moments. Well, she supposed there could have been WORSE habits he could have inherited from Lord Tyrion.

"Podrick, what do you think? Margaery Tyrell just sent ANOTHER letter begging for me to come to the tournament at Highgarden. Apparently, Loras wants a rematch, and there will be some Marcher lords there that hadn't been able to attend the games at Storm's End. The Tyrells have invited the whole household."

He looked up from his book with glassy eyes and squinted in the dim light from the braziers. "Well, Ser-my Lady, I think we ought to go. And take Daena Barrens with us, too."

"Daena Barrens!" exclaimed Brienne. "She's, she's...you're right, for once. I've seen that Alys needs more company her own age, and Daena has certainly earned a bit of celebration considering. We should send some men at arms up to the watch tower to help Dalla while we're away."

"Ser, should we bring Septa Roelle with us?"

"Roelle? If we brought her, there'd be no representative for the Faith on Tarth," Brienne considered. "No. I'll be the girls' chaperone-or Margaery can provide one I'm sure, considering how many cousins that girl has."

Alys burst from behind a tapestry where she'd been skulking about unseen. "Oh, Brienne, Lady Brienne, say those words again!"

"I will not. Eavesdropping is a very bad habit, Alys," admonished Brienne. "How long have you been there?"

"I know I'm a terrible trial for you and Podrick," said Alys repentantly. "I make so many mistakes. But then just think of all the mistakes I don't make, although I might. Oh, I'm so glad you've decided to let me come and that Daena may keep me company. I've only been to Highgarden the once, you know, and I was so frightened at the time that I barely had anytime to acquaint myself with it. Lady Margaery was just splendid. She was so kind to me, and me a perfect urchin, that I've been wishing I could see her again. Don't you think she would be impressed with how I'm turning out? I'm sure she'll see that it's due to your efforts. Do you think my father will be there? Oh, I do wish he will go to the tourney. Will you please tell him about the shipwreck? I want him to be proud of me, but I don't want to seem like I am a braggart."

During Alys' speech, Brienne got up from her desk and gently led Alys from the room, giving her a gentle shove on her shoulder before shutting the door in her face. "Go see Jule the seamstress about some proper clothes for the journey, Alys," she said through the door, pleased to have found something to occupy the excitable little girl.

The journey to Highgarden passed without incident. That is, it was uneventful except in the eyes of Alys Flowers, who couldn’t keep still the entire sea voyage. The two girls clean wore out the deck as they traipsed from bow to stern making friends with sailors and sea gulls alike. Brienne had Pod slip the boatswain two extra Dragons in thanks for humoring the girls’ when they reached the dock.

For Alys, the real excitement began when they left Oldtown and increased in crescendo until it reached a crash of positive ecstasy at Highgarden itself. The two girls practiced their manners in the common room of every inn along the Roseroad on their way, and if Brienne would admit it to herself, Septa Roelle had come a long way with the girl’s manners. Daena helped Alys with her hair, trying all the new southron styles they spied on their way to see the Tyrells and Alys added a bit of embroidery to her friend’s tabard to lend it a more tailored style.

A retinue of the Tyrell’s met them on the Roseroad-Margaery’s cousins, Alys learned upon introductions. There was Luthor and Alla, Rickard and Elinor. The young women crowded into a litter, and even Lady Brienne relented and got off her horse. Podrick and Jasper rode ahead with Rickard and Luthor, preceding the ladies through the rose gates, so called for the blooming briars that twined around the steel grate.

Alys reveled in the ride to the hall, slipping along over the smooth paved roads with the heady aroma of roses wafting through the sheer curtains into the litter. There was a magnificent sunset, and the creamy white stone of the curtain wall and deep green briar maze of the inner bailey seemed to rim in the splendor like a huge bowl of pearl and emerald brimmed with wine and fire. The tinkle of bells woven in the horses’ manes and the effervescent laughter of the Tyrell ladies seemed to Alys like the mirth of the children of the forest out of some tale.

“Oh, Brienne,” greeted Lady Alla, who was nineteen and had grown out of most of her shyness, “it is so good to see you once more. My cousin Loras tells me you are still very fierce in the melee, and that he was forced to settle a wager with Margaery on your account.”

“Thank you, Lady Alla. He is quite accomplished at the lance, if truth be told,” said Brienne with a flush. She turned to the other women in the litter. “Were you acquainted with my foster daughter Alys when she last visited with Lady Margaery?”

Alla Tyrell turned her bright smile on the two little girls and held her hand out to both, “Oh, it’s a pleasure. No, we did not meet, but I have heard only good things from my cousin. Alys, is it? That is my lady mother’s name.”

“You look awfully nice,” interrupted Daena with one of her throaty laughs, having just received a compliment from Elinor, she felt she ought to pass it on. “You’ve got the loveliest chestnut curls and your rose brooch is beautiful.”

Arriving at the keep, the entourage was shown into the presence of Lady Olenna, known in less delicate circles as the Queen of Thorns. To Alys, who knew her only as Lady Margaery’s grandmother, she didn’t resemble a wizened rose so much as a dandelion puff, with the wispy locks of white hair drifting about her head. She looked frail, but her gaze still held the glint of steel.

“Brienne, my dear,” exclaimed the old woman, “it has been too long. I’m glad you’ve decided to grace my old bones with your company.”

Brienne bowed over the proffered hand, unwilling to curtsey in full plate armor. “It’s an honor, my lady, as always.”

“I knew your father, Lord Selwyn. I was sad to hear of his passing.”

“He died before I returned to Tarth.”

“I am aware of that, Brienne. Just as I am aware he left no living sons. He was an old man, though not too old to get more sons on a woman. Just look at old Walder Frey. Maybe he felt he still had time, but perhaps Selwyn no longer had the heart after losing so many of his children. All men must die, as our queen is so fond of saying, but on my honor it is too soon for some. You’ve learned that well in the last years, poor child. You’ve had your share of grief, I know. We are sorry for your losses.”

“I was saddened when I heard of _your_ son’s death as well, Your Grace. He was an accomplished leader,” Brienne said.

Olenna snorted. “Mace? Accomplished, yes, but only at the dinner table. If I’d had the gumption to beat some sense into him, perhaps he would have been more politically savvy. It still surprises me that he died of dropsy and not at the end of a sword point from one of his failed campaigns.”

“My Lady,” said Brienne, unsure of how to respond. “This is my foster daughter, Alys Flowers, and Daena Barrens, the daughter of one of my vassals.”

“Flowers. A child of the Reach, well done, my Lady Evenstar. The Mother may bestow children on a maid, but you can never help if she blesses you with an oaf as I was. You did well to pick one out for yourself.”

Brienne couldn’t help but notice the redness in the face of a woman she vaguely remembered as being Lady Alerie, the wife of the late Mace Tyrell and the aforementioned oaf, so she tactfully changed the subject. “As it so happens, Your Grace, we are indebted to House Tyrell for saving Alys from an unfortunate situation. Your granddaughter retrieved her after her mother died.”

“Yes, the business with brothel. I know all about it. Well, don’t stand here gaping about. Go one with you. You and the girls will stay here in the castle in the family wing. The squires can go to the pavilions with the rest of the men. We’ll see you in the great hall after you’ve had a chance to freshen up,” said Lady Olenna before dismissing them.

The festivities that night were to commence the tournament with a series of exciting performers. Every minstrel and tumbler held ever more thrills for Alys and Daena, who never before had seen anything more extravagant than a traveling harpist. During the meal, a troupe of gymnasts cavorted in the space between the two long tables. They did cartwheels and stood on eachothers’ shoulders in such a playful manner as to give Alys _ideas_.

Near the end of the meal, when the girls helped themselves to lemon cakes, the court jester presented himself to the Queen of Thorns. Butterbumps somersaulted down the aisle and sprung to his feet, sweeping an exaggerated bow to the ladies at the high table with his scepter of golden roses. He was a fat little man with round pinked cheeks. He was dressed in green satin with gold rosettes embroidered on the breast and sleeves. The fool sported knee boots of soft green suede with long pointed toes that spiraled up and around in a way that they curled back upon the feet.

> _“The lord he came a-riding upon a rainy day,_
> 
> _hey-nonny, hey-nonny, hey-nonny-hey._
> 
> _The lady sat a-sewing upon a rainy day,_
> 
> _hey-nonny, hey-nonny, hey-nonny-hey.”_

Butterbumps sang lustily and loud, and when he finished, the various lords and ladies seated in the great hall of Highgarden began calling out requests.

_Please don’t sing the Bear and the Maiden Fair,_ Brienne thought. Even without a looking glass, she knew her freckles must be standing out stark against her fair skin in remembrance of another time. She called out her own request before she knew what she was doing. “Sing us ‘Her Little Flower’!” Immediately, the request was met with ribald cheers from the lower table.

It was only as the tune drifted off to the applause of the diners that Brienne’s eye was caught by the motion of a goblet raised in her direction. _Hyle Hunt_. She immediately sent Alys running to meet with her father and then turned to the young man on her left to engage him in conversation about the breeding of coursing hounds. She did not look in Hunt’s direction again that evening.

The night was old – or perhaps the morning was young - when Brienne shooed Alys and Daena off to their chambers for the night. They were sated with courtly debauchery, but with the exceeding sweet pleasure of talking it all over still to come. The corridors were less noisesome than the great hall, and now and then they encountered a furtive couple in a dark and quiet alcove. As Alys and Daena climbed to the emptied upper floor with their quarters, they began to tiptoe in the silence. Their suite of rooms were dark and warmed only by the banked embers of a summer hearth fire.

“Let’s undress here in the sitting room,” said Daena. “It’s so nice and warm.”

“Hasn’t it been a delightful time?” sighed Alys rapturously. “It must be splendid to live here all the time. Do you suppose we will be asked to come again, Daena?”

“Yes, of course, someday. Lady Olenna seems quite taken with your foster mother, and she’s not the only one. Oh, Alys, did you see how your father stared at Brienne? How could she pretend not to see him? When the song about the two lovers ended, Ser Hyle raised a toast to her and turned the brightest smile in her direction.”

“Daena,” said Alys with all dignity of an eleven year old girl, “you are my closest friend. But although I love you, I cannot reveal why Lady Brienne is at odds with my father. Enough. Are you ready for bed? Let’s run a race and see who’ll get to the bed first.”

The suggestion appealed to Daena. The two little white-clad figures flew down the length of the receiving room, though the door, and bounded on the bed at the same moment. And then – something – moved beneath them, there was a gasp and a cry – and somebody said in muffled accents:

“You foolish bloody oafs get off me!” screeched the creature from beneath the bed clothes.

Alys and Daena were never able to remember just how they got off that bed and out of the room. They only knew that after one frantic rush they found themselves tiptoeing shiveringly down the corridor in their shifts, carrying their kirtles and tabards over their arms.

“Oh, who was it – WHAT – was it?” whispered Alys, her teeth chattering with fright.

“It was your Lady Olenna,” said Daena, gasping with laughter. “Oh, Alys, we must have mixed up the rooms. She will be furious with us. It’s dreadful – it’s really dreadful – but did you ever know anything so funny, Alys?”

“Uh, Brienne is going to stripe my hide,” groaned Alys, as the situation dawned on her. “Or she would, if she were the kind of woman to strike a child. It will be even worse, though, Daena. She will be ever so _disappointed_ in me.”

“Will it really be as bad as that?”

Alys turned her knowing eyes on Daena and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Lady Olenna is called the Queen of Thorns, and not for no reason. She may be a Redwyne by birth, but she is still the Dowager Lady of Highgarden. She’s awfully old – seventy anyhow – and I don’t believe she was EVER a little girl. Even though she looks like a dainty old woman, her tongue is just as sharp as her wits, and it’s whispered about that she is just the cunningest woman in the Reach and the real power of House Tyrell. Her granddaughter was queen once – well, before we got our new queen – and now Lady Margaery is the _Mistress of Coin_ , one of the most powerful people in Westeros.”

“How do you know all that?”

“It’s all the nobles talked about during supper, Daena, if you knew how to listen for it. I suppose that’s something I learned when I still lived at the Secret Rose. You’d be surprised what you can learn from the high and mighty when they forget their servants have ears.”

Daena laughed. “You’re one to talk now, m’lady.” She sketched a wobbly curtsey in jest just before they finally found their real rooms and slunk inside.

Lady Olenna did not appear at breakfast the next morning. Alla smiled kindly at the two little girls.

“Did you have a good time last night? I did not see you leave the feast. I had intended to send a maid servant to guide you to your rooms in case you had trouble finding it in the unfamiliar keep. I trust the chambers were to your liking?” inquired Lady Alla Tyrell.

Alys preserved a discreet silence, but she and Daena exchanged furtive smiles of guilty amusement across the table. After breakfast, they hurried to the stands near the lists to watch the early games of the tournament and so remained in blissful ignorance of the disturbance which presently resulted in the feast hall until the late afternoon, when she went down to Tarth’s pavilion to check on Brienne before the joust.

“So you and Daena nearly crushed poor Lady Redwyne to death last night?” said Brienne severely, but with a twinkle in her eye. “Lady Alla was here a few minutes ago on her way to the grandstands. She’s feeling real worried over it. Olenna was in a terrible temper when she got up this morning – and the Queen of Thorns’ temper is no joke, I can tell you that.”

“It wasn’t Daena’s fault,” said Alys contritely. “It was all mine. I thought we were in the right rooms; it was ever so hard to tell in the dark. It was me, too, that suggested racing to see who would get into bed first.”

“I knew it!” said Brienne, with the exultation of a correct guesser. “I knew that idea came out of your head. Well, it’s made a nice lot of trouble, that’s what. Lady Olennna had originally said we could stay in the keep itself, but now we’re to join the camps with the rest of the tourney knights. We would have had to leave Highgarden altogether, if Lady Margaery hadn’t interceded on our behalf. Maybe Septa Roelle was right about me. I don’t know the first thing about bringing up a girl since I’m so unladylike myself.”

“Oh, don’t say that!” pleaded Alys. “I was ever getting into scrapes – even before you took me in. I’m always getting my best friends in trouble too. Can you tell me why it is so, Lady Brienne?”

“It’s because you’re too heedless and impulsive, Alys, that’s what. You never stop to think – whatever comes into your head to say or do you say or do it without a moment’s reflection.”

“Oh, but that’s the best of it,” protested Alys. “Something just flashes into your mind, so exciting, and you must out with it. If you stop to think it over you spoil it all. Haven’t you never felt that yourself, Lady Brienne?”

No, Brienne of Tarth had never had the luxury to act on impulse.

She shook her head sagely. “You must learn to think a little, Alys, that’s what.”

“I must go and apologize to Lady Olenna.”

“Alys Flowers, you’ll do no such thing. I think you’ve done enough damage. I’ve already made peace with the Tyrells, and we’re to stay down below in the pavilions until the tournament is finished. I’ll not have you bothering the Dowager Lady again.”

With this bit of encouragement – or lack thereof – Alys walked resolutely to the green and gold tent that reigned supreme on the grounds. The guards, twins by the look of it, allowed her to pass after a quick word within the pavilion’s resident.

“Who do you think you are?” demanded Lady Olenna Redwyne, without ceremony.

“Just plain and simple Alys Flowers,” said the small visitor tremulously, clasping her hands with her characteristic gesture, “and I’ve come to confess, if you please.”

“Confess what?”

“That it was all my fault about jumping into bed on you last night. I suggested it. Daena would never have thought such a thing and Lady Brienne would have stopped me in my tracks if she’d had even one inkling of what I’d intended. Brienne is a very ladylike woman, Lady Olenna. Surely you must see how unjust it is to blame her for my behavior.”

The old woman just blinked at her owlishly and then barked out a hearty laugh. “The Maid of Tarth? A ladylike woman?”

“Oh yes, my Lady. Quite ladylike. So you see it was all my doing and you really must forgive my foster mother.”

“Oh, I must, hey? I rather think your little friend Daena did her share of the jumping as well. Such behavior in little girls should not be encouraged.”

“But we were only in fun,” persisted Alys. “I think you ought to forgive us, Lady Olenna, now that I’ve apologized. And anyhow, please forgive Lady Brienne and let her stay with your family in the keep instead of down in the camps. Her heart utterly loves tournaments, but you know it isn’t always safe for a real lady like Brienne to sleep in the camps surrounded by the other knights. Some of the men can be very cruel and play games on a woman, like they did to my foster mother before. If you must be cross with anyone, be cross with me. I’ve been so used in my early days to having people be cross at me that I can endure it much better than Brienne and Daena can. I can sleep in the scullery if you like if you would only let Brienne and Daena stay in the suite.”

Much of the snap had gone out of the old lady’s eyes by this time and was replaced by a twinkle of amused interest. But she still said severely:

“I don’t think it is any excuse for you that you were only in fun. Little girls never indulged in that kind of fun when I was young. You don’t know what it is to be awakened out of a sound sleep, after a long and mead filled night of festivities, by two great girls with bony elbows and knees coming bounce down on you.”

“I don’t KNOW, but I can IMAGINE,” said Alys eagerly. “I’m sure it must have been very disturbing. But then, there is our side of it to. Have you any imagination, Lady Olenna? If you have, just put yourself in our place. We didn't know there was anybody in that bed and you nearly scared us to death. It was simply awful the way we felt. But just imagine what you would feel like if you were a little whore’s get who had never had such an honor as sleeping in a palace chamber that was nicer than just anyplace she’d ever seen before and getting into bed only to find some CREATURE wriggling beneath the coverlet.”

All the snap had gone by this time. Lady Olenna actually laughed – a sound which caused the twins guarding the tent to startle and exchange a glance.

“I’m afraid my imagination is a little rusty – it’s so long since I used it,” she said. “I dare say your claim to sympathy is just as strong as mine. It all depends on the way we look at it. Sit down here and tell me about yourself.”

“I am very sorry I can’t,” said Alys firmly. “I would like to, because you seem like an interesting lady, and you might even be empathetic although you don’t look very much like it at the moment. But it is my duty to go back to the Tarth tent and to my foster mother. Lady Brienne is a very kind lady who has taken me to bring up properly at my father’s request. She is doing her best, but it is very discouraging work. You must not blame her because I jumped on the bed. But before I go I do wish you would tell me if you will forgive my foster mother and my friend and let them stay in Highgarden as long as you originally offered.”

“I think perhaps I will if you will promise to come and sit in the grandstands with me during the tournament and talk with me,” said Lady Olenna.

Alys’ pensive face cracked a beaming smile and presently she gathered up her skirts and ran down the path to the blue and pink pavilion with moons and stars to tell Brienne the good news.

That evening, Lady Olenna invited both Alys and Daena to sit at the high table with her and gave to Alys a golden medal in the shape of an apple.

“I’ve made up my mind to let them stay simply for the sake of getting better acquainted with that Alys girl,” she told the Tyrell cousins frankly that evening. “She amuses me, and at my time of life an amusing person is a rarity.”

This time, Brienne of Tarth did not win the purse. That honor went to Garlan the Gallant, Lady Margaery’s brother, who is well known as being easily the best swordsman in the Reach. Alys kept Olenna in good humor, becoming fast friends, and the Queen of Thorns invited their whole house to stay out the month. Lady Redwyne even invited Ser Hyle to stay at Highgarden, but he had to return to the Stormlands with his liege lord at the end of the tournament, much to Brienne’s relief.

“Remember, Alys, when you come to the Reach again you’re to visit me,” said Lady Olenna when it was time for them to leave. “And if you ever seek to be a lady-in-waiting, you just let your foster mother know you’re welcome at Highgarden. I seem to have a never-ending supply of nieces and granddaughters in need of companionship.”

“Lady Olenna was a kind woman, after all,” Alys confided to Brienne on their trip home. “You wouldn’t think so to look at her or to listen to the common gossip, but she is. You don’t find it right out at first, as with some people, but after awhile you come to see it. Good and nice people are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow [this link](http://twoiafart.tumblr.com/post/101320214584/the-world-of-ice-and-fire-highgarden) to see what Highgarden looks like.


	17. Brienne is Invited to Court

“And what are your eyes popping out of your head about now?” asked Brienne, when Alys had just come down from the Maester’s tower. “Have you discovered another bit of bloody history in one of Flint’s books? Or perhaps he’s gone and taught you another raiders’ ballad.”

Excitement hung around Alys like a garment, shining in her eyes and kindled in every feature. She had come dancing down the spiral stair, like a wind-blown sprite, through the mellow sunshine and lazy shadows of the evening that peeked through Evenfall’s windows. “No, Brienne, but oh, what do you think? You are invited to court to meet with the queen! Just look at it Brienne,” said Alys, holding out the message scroll for a glimpse. “‘The Evenstar, Brienne Tarth, Lady of Evenfall.’ That is the first time I’ve ever seen your name with such pomp. It gave me such a thrill. You should cherish this letter from the queen and store it with your other treasures.”

Alys looked around Brienne’s study as though she might find a pirate’s treasure chest or perhaps a vault of gemstones and silver stags. The corner of Brienne’s mouth twitched as she watched her foster daughter open one drawer after another looking for some proper place to store the queen’s letter she’d even yet to read.

“I’m hardly surprised, Alys. This is not the first time the queen has requested my presence, though it is the first time I know of that you snooped in my private correspondence.”

“Oh!” Alys gasped, dropping the letter as though it burned her fingers. “I’m so sorry Lady Brienne. I was just so overcome with excitement for you I couldn’t resist when Maester Flint bid me bring the scroll to you after our lessons were done.”

“Queen Daenerys told me she meant to have all her vassals return to King’s Landing to renew their oaths of fealty,” explained Brienne, bending to retrieve the scroll. “You needen’t get in such a fever over it. Do learn to take things calmly, child, and behave when you attend me at King’s Landing.”

For Alys to take things calmly would have been to change her nature. She went to bed that night speechless with misery because Podrick had said the tradewinds were round northeast and he feared it would herald a season of storms. The rustle of the weirwood leaves about the bailey worried her, it sounded so like pattering raindrops, and the full, faraway roar of the straits, to which she listened delightedly at other times, loving its strange, sonorous, haunting rhythm, now seemed like a prophecy of storm and disaster to a small maiden who particularly wanted a fine day. Alys thought that the journey would never come.

But all things have an end, even nights before the day on which you are to journey to the capital. The morning, in spite of Podrick’s predictions, was fine and Alys’ spirits soared to their highest. "Oh, Brienne, there is something in me today that makes me just love everybody I see," she exclaimed as she packed her footlocker. "You don't know how good I feel! Wouldn't it be nice if it could last? I believe I could be a model child if I were just invited to court every day. But oh, Brienne, it's a solemn occasion too. I feel so anxious. What if I shouldn't behave properly? You know I was a dismal failure at Highgarden, and I'm not sure that I know all the rules of etiquette, although I've been practicing the rules given me by Septa Roelle ever since I came here. I'm so afraid I'll do something silly or forget to do something I should do. Oh, it was so much easier to visit at Storm’s End. Ser Gendry and Lady Arya really know how to put my fears to ease."

“The trouble with you, Alys, is that you’re thinking too much about yourself. You should just think of the queen and how to avoid notice,” suggested Brienne, hitting for once in her life on a very sound and pithy piece of advice. Alys instantly realized this.

“You are right, Brienne. I’ll try not to think about myself at all. After all, this trip is about your oath, not mine.”

Alys evidently got through her visit without any serious breach of etiquette, for she came home with Brienne in high spirits, under a great, high-sprung sky gloried over with trails of saffron and rosy cloud, in a beatified state of mind and told Sara all about it happily, sitting on the bench at the big plank table in the kitchens with her tired feet kicking the table leg while she devoured brown bread with apricot preserves.

“Oh, Sara, I’ve had the most fascinating time. I feel that I have not lived in vain and I shall always feel like that even if I should never be invited to King’s Landing again. When I got there Queen Daenerys met us in the throne room. She was dressed in the sweetest dress of red and black organdy, with dozens of frills and elbow sleeves, and she looked just like a dragon in the form of a girl. I really think I'd like to be a dragon rider when I grow up, Sara. A dragon rider mightn't mind being a bastard because she wouldn't be thinking of such worldly things. But then of course one would have to be naturally fearless when faced with the creatures and I'll never be that, so I suppose there's no use in thinking about it. Some people are naturally fearless, you know, and others are not. I'm one of the others. Septa Roelle says I'm too imaginative to be fearless. No matter how hard I try to be brave I can never make such a success of it as those who are naturally brave. It's a good deal like sword fighting, I expect. But don't you think the trying so hard ought to count for something? Lady Brienne is one of the naturally brave people. I love her passionately. You know there are some people, like Podrick and Lady Brienne that you can love right off without any trouble. And there are others, like Septa Roelle, that you have to try very hard to love. You know you OUGHT to love them because they know so much and are such active workers in the Faith, but you have to keep reminding yourself of it all the time or else you forget. There was another high lady at the court, from Winterfell. Her name was Sansa, and she was a very nice young woman. She was a very high lady, you know, but still pleasant to me considering my birth. She lost her mother just like I lost my mine. We had a nice talk, and I think I kept all the rules of etiquette pretty well. After the greeting, the queen invited several ladies to the council chamber. Lady Sansa says I have a keen mind and she says I should come to King’s Landing more often. You can't think how I was thrilled at the mere thought. I've longed so to fit in at court, as Brienne does, but I feared it was an honor I could never aspire to. Sansa says that she expected Brienne to be asked herself someday to join the council. I just gazed at her in awe. Queen Daenerys came back to the throne room just before I left, and what do you think, Sara? The queen has settled on making her new queensguard and they will all ladies. Isn't that romantic? Septa Roelle says they've never had a female queensguard in Westeros before and she thinks it is a dangerous innovation. But I think it will be splendid to have a ladies only queensguard, and I really don't see how I'm going to live through the two months before Lady Brienne takes her vow as the new Lady Commander of the Queensguard. I'm so impatient to see the ceremony."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated 2 chapters tonight.


	18. The Small Council Meets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Wishful Thinking
> 
> But that's why there's fan fiction.

Alys had lived at Evenfall a year when Brienne decided to accept the queen’s invitation and move them to King’s Landing. The fields of Tarth were full of their harvest, all red and gold, with mellow mornings when the valleys were filled with delicate mists as if the spirit of summer had poured them in for the sun to drain--amethyst, pearl, silver, rose, and smoke-blue. The dews were so heavy that the fields glistened like cloth of silver and there were such heaps of rustling leaves in the hollows of many-stemmed woods to run crisply through. There was a tang of iodine in the very air that now spoke to Alys Flowers of home; and it was diverting to be in lessons down at the garrison with Arms Mistress Thistle or up in Flint’s tower at the little brown desk beside Jasper, with Perry nodding asleep across the aisle and Cheswyck passing love notes to Daise and Gull passing a "chew" of sourleaf from the back seat. Alys drew a long breath of happiness as she sharpened her quill and arranged her inks, parchments, and blotting papers on her desk. Life was certainly very interesting.

But all the shortbow practice and histories paled before the news that Brienne announced to her household. This was that they would all be moving to King’s Landing when she took command of the Queensguard, the position of Lord Commander having been empty since the death of Ser Barristan Selmy. Queen Daenerys had announced a tourney in Brienne’s honor, with the warriors being judged for their fitness to stand as bodyguards to the Iron Throne.

“I don’t agree with this nonsense of holding a tourney to choose the new White Cloaks,” grumbled Brienne. “And I don’t approve of this needless celebration of my accepting the position.”

“But I think you’re worthy of the festival, Lady Brienne,” Alys stated. “You’re such a hero to everyone, I’m sure it will do well for the smallfolk to see you in your blue armor with a wreath of roses draped over your horse’s head for the parade.”

“Mmph! If Daenerys thinks I’ll pick women for her guard out of political expediency, she has another thing coming. I’ll only pick the most competent. I’ll see to them myself with a private testing, and I won’t care a bit about the tournament competition. I think that’s just for show.”

“Well, if you can combine duty and fun, isn’t it all right?” asked Alys. “Of course it’s real nice to be going to another tourney – especially one that’s held in your honor. Podrick said there’s to be seven days of games with a grand melee on the last day. He said that the women who want to try their hand at becoming a White Cloak will compete in an elimination combat with you as their judge, but there will be other games for the men. I do so hope you’ll let me bring Daena Barrens. It just wouldn’t be the same to go without her. I’m going to practice my curtsey for when I meet the queen again.”

“All I hope is that you’ll behave yourself. I’ll be glad when the move is over and you’ll be able to settle down. You are simply good for nothing right now with your head stuffed full of dreams,” Brienne complained.

Alys sighed and took herself out of Brienne’s study, down through the keep and into the bailey, over which a young new moon was shining through the branches of weirwood tree from an apple-green western sky that threatened a sea storm. Alys perched herself on a low stump and talked with Sara as she gathered herbs from the herb garden, sure of an appreciative and sympathetic listening in this instance at least.

“Well now, I vow it will be a right smart tourney for our Lady Brienne to shine. And I expect you’ll do your father’s house proud, as well as House Tarth,” Sara said, smiling down into her eager, vivacious little face. Alys smiled back at her. Those two were fast friends and Sara thanked the Crone for sending this tumultuous little girl to the lady of the house. “But I will own, it will be awful lonely without your bright spirit at Evenfall Hall.”

It was more than two weeks before they made their journey to King’s Landing. Alys was becoming an old hand at sea voyages but poor Jasper Buckler spent most of his time below decks hanging his head over an old copper kettle. As it happened, Brienne had not sanctioned Daena Barrens coming along, so she had assigned Podrick the onerous task of keeping Alys from under the helmsman’s foot.

They sailed around Massey’s Hook and into Blackwater Bay on one of Tarth’s own ships, exhausted but refreshed all the same, as sea voyages tended to have that effect on her. To short cut the traffic of trading cogs, the captain of the ship navigated the spears of the merling king with Brienne’s blessing. Broken masts and shattered keels were still visible beneath the glass green waves of the bay, reminding her of the flotsam found in Shipbreaker Bay, though she was well aware that this underwater wreckage harkened back to the Battle of the Blackwater.

Brienne was still settling her household in one of the wings of the Red Keep when the queen’s steward, Missandei told her there would be a meeting of the small council and that the queen required her presence as soon as was convenient.

“As Her Majesty requires,” assured Brienne as she turned over the matter of the household to Pod.

The steward curtseyed elegantly, “I regret the meeting takes you from your other duties, my lady. I will send some workmen to help your man with arrangements.”

“Thank you, Missandei,” she said. “I will see them in a few moments. However, I am still salt stained and travel weary. Please give me a few moments to change into something more befitting Her Majesty’s presence.”

“Yes, my lady,” the steward said. “We have given you Ser Barristan’s former chambers in the White Sword Tower. Your personal affects have already been stowed there. If it pleases you, I’ll accompany you there now and assist you.”

“My thanks,” Brienne said, as she slung her travel satchel over her shoulder. The rest of the envoy from Tarth was still coming down the corridor as she left. She saw Alys and Jasper clomping down the hallway and called out. “I must see to the queen. See Podrick to find where your chambers are. And Alys? No exploring.”

And so Brienne strode into the council chambers some time later, cheeks pinked from a fresh scrubbing and sporting her ceremonial tabard, to find four members of the small council waiting for her. The chamber was a sad echo of its former glory. Gone were the Myrish carpets and carved screens adorned with fantastical creatures. The tapestries were missing, and the pale red ashlars were a lighter color where they once had hung. The black marble sphinxes were still standing guard at the door, but their eye sockets glared empty and gouged. It took Brienne aback to see the lingering marks of war on the royal chamber.

The councillor Brienne knew best, Lady Margaery, embraced her the moment she entered. “Lady Brienne, I was ecstatic to hear you had accepted the queen’s offer. I prayed to the Maid you would.” She squeezed Brienne’s arm affectionately and she smelled faintly of rosewater.

“You might have prayed to the Warrior, I suppose, in this situation.”

“No. I prayed to the Maid to bring us the Maid,” laughed Margaery.

Brienne pressed Margaery’s hand in return and then crossed the room to where Lady Sansa stood by the empty hearth talking to a shorter woman who could only be the Princess Shireen, given away by the telltale greyscale on the left side of her face and neck. Sansa had only been fourteen when Brienne had first discovered her, but she had grown into a woman so like her mother that it near took Brienne’s breath away. She had the Tully look to her, with the auburn hair and blue eyes. When Brienne saw her, it was as if Lady Catelyn stood before her once more, free from the woes of war and loss of loved ones. The woman would have been proud to see her daughter wear the brooch of the Hand.

Sansa turned her eyes on Brienne. “Lady Brienne, I see you arrived safely, thank the Mother.”

“And you, I see. How was the trip from Winterfell?” asked Brienne, belatedly realizing she was still staring. “Forgive me, but sometimes I am reminded of your mother when I look at you. I miss her, you should know.”

Sansa gave a small smile, murmured her thanks, and said simply, “As do I.”

Princess Shireen turned to Brienne, taking her hands in her own. “I have hoped to meet you for some time, Lady Tarth. I couldn’t help growing up on Dragonstone and hearing tales of the warrior maid from the island. You were quite the hero to me.”

“Lady Brienne has been the hero to many maids,” said Margaery as she found a place at the council table next to Sansa. “I understand she spent half the war killing rapists, if you believe even a portion the tales.”

Brienne reached a hand to her cheek out of habit, lightly touching the puckered flesh there. She never forgot it was there. The wound had been deep and she could feel the stiff scarring from inside her mouth with a probe of her tongue. “I still carry the marks, as do we all.”

She moved to the council table and said, “Maester Sarella, I trust you are well.”

The Grand Maester smiled her soft smile from her seat across from the queen’s chair. “Well enough here in the cold so close to the Neck. They say the northerners are made of ice, and I believe it, when I see so many walk about without shirtsleeves. The chill is enough to make me miss Oldtown.” Wavy black hair curled around her ears, framing a dark brown face and near black eyes. Her maester’s chain was more ornate than Maester Flint’s, with enough links to drape the necklace down towards her slim waist. There were links of dull lead and pewter as well as bright ones of copper and gold. Throughout the intricate chain, the links were inscribed with scrollwork and embedded with precious gemstones. Sarella was young to have mastered so many disciplines, but the evidence of her training was plain to see as it hung around her neck. The maester pulled an orange shawl around her shoulders that sported the main drum tower of the citadel embroidered on the field. Near the fringe, Brienne could see the small emblem of the sun and spear of House Martell picked out in fine detail. “I fear I shall freeze to death if we wait much longer.”

Brienne took up her station behind the queen’s seat at the head of the table, waiting for Queen Daenerys to arrive. The ebony wood was carved in the likeness of a mass of scaled tails and limbs writhing and curved back on one another. The high back resembled nothing so much as the heads of three dragons arching up and over the seated figure with mouths gaping to show spines of obsidian embedded to resemble teeth. Rubies were embedded in the dragon heads to mimic eyes and the edge of each and every scale in the carved wood was gilt in gold. She shuddered to think of the craftsman who had tackled the project.

“My ladies, I am sorry if you were delayed on my account,” Brienne apologized.

“Think nothing of it,” smiled Sansa. “We regret you were called so soon after your arrival. We’ll begin as soon as Dany arrives.”

As the others took their usual seats, it suddenly struck Brienne that she belonged here, in this room, with these women. She remembered what the queen had told her on her last visit to King’s Landing. _I would be surrounded by women of worth and honor_ , Daenerys had insisted, _whose loyalty is as much to my children-my people-as to me. I would not be another Mad King_. Brienne looked around the faces at the council table and wondered how so many strong personalities could hope to work together for the Seven Kingdoms to bring a lasting peace.  “Are we waiting on the rest of the council?”

“Lady Asha sailed to Eastwatch last week,” said Margaery, “and the Mistress of Whispers is probably somewhere skulking about in Flea Bottom ferreting out secrets in the muck.”

“Margaery!” complained Sansa.

“Well, you know your sister,” said Margaery. “I doubt she’ll make it in time for the meeting. To be sure, Arya’ll give a private report to Dany later, and the queen will decide what tidbits to share with us.”

“What Lady Margaery means is that my cousin is actually interested in all this business of spies and coin and crops,” Princess Shireen said, “so she likes to involve herself as much as possible to understand how it is all interrelated to better govern the realm. And although Dany gives us much authority, it is not uncommon for her to randomly audit our records, to perform surprise inspections of our underlings, or to keep aside some information that is only for her eyes and ears.”

“And the Commander of the City Watch, will he be coming?” Brienne inquired.

“Goldenhand is not a member of the council. He answers to me,” said Shireen, making it clear she did not wish to discuss him further. She pushed a portfolio across the table towards Brienne. “When we received your assent weeks ago, the queen asked me to convene this council to advise you on the particulars.”

“No,” insisted Brienne. “Her Majesty agreed I would have choice of the Queensguard. I will not choose warriors based on politics.”

“And so you shall,” interrupted a voice from the doorway. Daenerys walked into the council chamber trailed by Missandei and a Dothraki warrior Brienne did not recognize. She wore a red dress with dagged sleeves and split skirts, covered over with a sleeveless mail shirt tinted silvery-black with chromite. Her hair was cropped close, a result of braving the fires that had ravaged the Others in the last battle. As the other council members stood, Brienne swept to one knee, with one hand on her sword sheath and the other fisted to her forehead in a ceremonial salute. “Your Majesty.”

“Lady Brienne, rise,” Queen Daenerys commanded. “This meeting is about the logistics of the tournament, not who you will choose to fill the ranks of my guard.” She dismissed her Dothraki guard and took a seat. Missandei took the chair on her right.

“Dany,” said Shireen. “I don’t know how we’ll afford to feed the guests, to be honest. The treasury is rather empty at the moment.”

“Cousin, I know well how Robert spent my father’s coin. I could take Baratheon lands in recompense for their treason,” the queen said jokingly.

“We have plenty of food in the Reach, Your Majesty,” suggested Margaery. “The Tyrell’s would be happy to sell their harvest to the Iron Throne.”

“I think we’ve borrowed enough from the Tyrell’s, don’t you think? Your family loaned us funds to pay back Braavos already,” Shireen pointed out. She turned to the queen. “Being indebted to the mistress of coin is a risky move, Your Majesty.”

“Or a wise one,” interrupted Lady Sansa. “If Margaery ever wants her family to be paid back, she’ll make sure the throne prospers. What is that saying you’re so fond of? You can’t squeeze coins from an empty purse or something?”

“Indeed. I agree with Shireen that we can ill afford the tournament,” the maester said. “But perhaps there is a way to turn it to our advantage.”

“What would you advise?” Dany inquired.

“Don’t buy the food from the Tyrell’s farmers. Invite their merchants here,” Sansa suggested.

“We’ve fed this city before for free, or have you forgotten?” Margaery pointed out.

“No. Sansa is right,” Sarella agreed. “The throne won’t buy the food, but we’ll let them sell it. No entrance fees. No tariffs on the goods. Any merchant or farmer or craftsman can camp outside the walls and sell to all who come.”

“So we’ll have a free tourney and our countrymen get to line their purses,” Margaery said with a smile after a few moments of reflection. “I’ll admit that’s a sight better than me selling sixty wagons of apples for a promise, Your Grace.”

“Good. Keep me informed, I’ll leave the planning to you and Sansa.” Daenerys turned to look at Brienne where she stood at alert at her shoulder. “Lady Brienne, please sit with us. Aggo and Jhogo guard the door so that you can be at ease.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.  Aggo and Jhogo…"  Brienne hesitated. "You bid me choose your Queensguard. Aren’t these Dothraki already members of your Queensguard?”

“Yes, they are the Queensguard for the Queen of Mereen, but I need a Queensguard for the Iron Throne of Westeros,” Dany explained. “Aggo and Jhogo will be returning across the Narrow Sea after the tourney. Have you any members in mind?”

Now Brienne smiled. “I may have a few ideas of who to invite.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter is based on [this post](http://snkrfnd.tumblr.com/post/83125031230/asoiaf-wishes), and is meant to parallel Ned Stark's first meeting with the small council.
> 
> Here's a [deleted scene](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2765393) that explains about Goldenhand, the Commander of the City Watch. I felt that it didn't match the style of this story and took it out.


	19. Alys Comes to Grief in an Affair of Honor

Alys had to live through more than four weeks, as it happened. Almost a month having elapsed since their move to King's Landing, it was high time for her to get into fresh trouble of some sort, little mistakes, such as absentmindedly emptying her chamber pot into a basket of yarn balls next to her setee instead of in the provided bucket from the chamber maids, and walking clean over the edge of the raised dais when meeting with the queen while wrapped in imaginative reverie, not really being worth counting.

A week after the first meeting of the small council, Arya Stark invited her out with some of the other young ladies of the court.

"Small and select," Arya had assured Brienne when she expressed surprise. "Just the youngest of the ladies at court, so as to help her feel at home and at ease. When my sister and I first came here, she had Jeyne Poole to keep her company, but I had no friends to play with, so I fear Alys must be lonely."

They had a very good time and nothing untoward happened until after tea, when they found themselves in the Godswood, a little tired of their small talk and ripe for any enticing form of mischief which might present itself. Though the young women were revered members of Queen Dany’s court, in truth, they were little more than girls who had been forced to grow up too quickly during wartime. As a result, this left the young women acting foolishly childish at times, as though to make up for lost time. This presently took the form of daring.

It had all begun when Lyanna Mormont, the sixteen year old niece of the lady of Bear Island, begged Arya Stark to tell some of the tales of when she'd first arrived in King's Landing. This ultimately led to a discussion of all that Master Syrio had taught to her of water dancing.

First of all, Princess Shireen dared Arya Stark to climb to a certain point in the huge weirwood tree, some fifteen feet above the carved face. Then Arya dared Lyanna to hop backwards three times around the well-yard without dropping any water from a pail without stopping once or putting the bucket to the ground; which Lyanna Mormont tried to do, but gave out at the third corner and had to confess herself defeated.

Arya's triumph being rather more pronounced than good taste permitted, Alys Flowers dared her to walk along the top of the board fence that circled the pottage garden in the kitchen's bailey. Now, to "walk" board fences requires more skill and steadiness of head and heel than one might suppose who has never tried it. But Arya Stark, if deficient in some qualities that make for a genteel lady, had at least a natural and inborn gift shared with her brother Bran for balance and climbing, duly cultivated in her time with Master Syrio and the training she received in Braavos, for walking board fences. Arya walked the garden fence with an airy unconcern which seemed to imply that a little thing like that wasn't worth a 'dare', though the pale face and pinched look in her older sister's countenance as she watched from a window of the keep told a different story. Admiration greeted her exploit, for most of the other girls could appreciate it, having suffered many things themselves in their efforts to walk fences. Arya descended from her perch, flushed with victory, and darted an encouraging smile at Alys.

Not to be outdone by the older and more noble girls and wanting desperately to impress them, Alys ventured to say, "It's a wonderful thing to walk a low board fence, but I know a girl on Tarth that can walk the ridgepole of a roof."

"I don't believe it," Lyanna said defiantly. "I dare you to climb up on the roof of the forge and walk the ridgepole right now."

Alys turned pale, but there was clearly only one thing to be done. She walked to a stack of barrels on the side of the forge that provided a convenient spot to reach the roof.

"Don't you do it, Alys," entreated Princess Shireen. "You'll fall off and be killed. You don't have anything to be proved."

"I must do it, your highness. My honor is at stake," said Alys solemnly to the queen’s heir before turning to the young she-bear. "I shall walk that ridgepole, Lady Lyanna, or perish in the attempt. If I am killed, send my pink shell brooch to Daena Barrens on Tarth."

Alys climbed the barrels amid breathless silence, grabbed the gutter and hauled herself uprightly on that precarious footing, and started to walk along it, dizzily conscious that she was uncomfortably high up in the world and that walking ridgepoles was not even close to the same thing as perching atop one of the guard towers on Tarth that were safely ringed by crenelations. Nevertheless, she managed to take several steps before the catastrophe came. Then she swayed, slipped on the tiles, stumbled, staggered, and fell, sliding down over the sun baked roof and crashing off it through the tangle of smithing tools hanging from the eaves - all before the dismayed circle below could give a simultaneous, terrified shriek.

If Alys had tumbled off the roof on the side up which she had ascended, Daena Barrens would probably have fallen heir to the shell brooch then and there. Fortunately she fell on the other side, where the roof extended down over the porch so nearly to the ground that a fall therefrom was a much less serious thing. Nevertheless, when Lyanna and the other ladies had rushed frantically around the house -except Shireen who stayed rooted to the ground - they found Alys lying all pale and limp among the wreck and ruin of the bellows and moulds and hammers of the Red Keep’s smith.

To the immense relief of all the girls, and especially of Arya Stark, who had been seized with the horrible imaginations of her brother Bran falling at Winterfell, Alys sat dizzily up and announced uncertainly:

"I am not dead, but I feel like it."

Before Alys could give any particulars of her condition, Sansa Stark, who had been spying from a window above, appeared on the scene. At the sight of her, Alys tried to scramble to her feet, but sank back again with a sharp little cry of pain.

"What's the matter? Where have you hurt yourself?" demanded Sansa frantically, as she suffered the same memories of Bran's accident as her younger sister.

"My ankle," gasped Alys. "Oh, please find a guardsman to take me back to Lady Brienne's suite. I know I can never walk there."

Brienne was in the White Sword Tower entering details into the White Book when she saw Lyanna Mormont and Arya Stark coming down the hall toward her study, with a whole procession of young women trailing after them. In their linked arms they carried Alys, whose head lay limply against Lady Arya's shoulder.

At that moment Brienne had a revelation. In the sudden stab of fear that pierced her very heart she realized what Alys had come to mean to her. She would have admitted that she liked Alys--nay, that she was very fond of Alys. But now she knew as she hurried wildly down the hall that Alys was dearer to her than anything else on earth.

"Arya, what has happened to her?" she gasped, more white and shaken than the self-contained, sensible Brienne had been for many years - not since she had almost lost Podrick Payne to a hanging noose.

Alys herself answered, lifting her head. "Don't be very frightened, Lady Brienne. I was walking the ridgepole at the forge and I fell off. I expect I have sprained my ankle. But, Brienne, I might have broken my neck. Let us look on the bright side of things."

"I might have known you'd go and do something of the sort since you have been remarkably accident free this past month," said Brienne, sharp and short-tempered in her very relief. "Bring her in here, Arya, Lyanna, and lay her on the setee. Mother help me, the child has gone and fainted!"

It was quite true. Overcome by the pain of her injury, Alys had one more of her wishes granted to her. She had fainted dead away.

Podrick, hastily summoned from the practice yard, was straightway dispatched for the maester, who in due time came, to discover that the injury was more serious than they had supposed. Alys’ ankle was broken.

That night, when Brienne went up to the suite of rooms for the Tarth household, where a white-faced girl was lying, a plaintive voice greeted her from the bed.

"Aren't you very sorry for me, Lady Brienne?"

"It was your own fault," said Brienne, twitching closed the drapes around the bed and lighting a candle.

"And that is just why you should be sorry for me," said Alys, "because the thought that it is all my own fault is what makes it so hard. If I could blame it on anybody I would feel so much better. But what would you have done, my lady, if you had been challenged?"

"I'd have stayed on good firm ground. I would never do anything so foolish!" said Brienne.

Alys sighed. “Says the hero of Westeros that has scaled cliffs, thrown boulders on ships, dove from the river bluffs, killed rapists in each of the Seven Kingdoms, held the breech single handedly in the Wall, and rescued my father. Do you have any idea how hard it is to live up to that? You have such strength of character and reputation for heroics, Brienne. I haven't. I just felt that I couldn't bear for those ladies to see just plain Alys Flowers and not the foster-daughter of a hero. And I think I have been punished so much that you needn't be very cross with me, Brienne. It's not a bit nice to faint, after all. And Maester Sarella hurt me dreadfully when she was setting my ankle. I won't be able to go around for six or seven weeks and I'll likely miss the tournament. But I'll try to bear it all bravely if only you won't be cross with me, Brienne."

"There, there, I'm not cross," said Brienne. "You're an unlucky child, there's no doubt about that; but as you say, you'll have the suffering of it. Here now, try and eat some supper.  You haven't taken a bite from the platter sent from the kitchens."

"Isn't it fortunate I've got such an imagination?" said Alys. "It will help me through splendidly, I expect. What do people who haven't any imagination do when they break their bones, do you suppose, Brienne?"

Alys had good reason to bless her imagination many a time and oft during the tedious seven weeks that followed. But she was not solely dependent on it. She had many visitors and not a day passed without one or more of the ladies of court dropping in to bring her flowers and books and tell her all the happenings in the courtly world of the Red Keep. Arya and Sansa both were frequent visitors, and they often told her stories of their younger brother who had been crippled from a similar fall but grew to be a great hero and seer.

"Everybody has been so good and kind, Lady Brienne," sighed Alys happily, on the day when she could first limp across the floor. "It isn't very pleasant to be laid up; but there is a bright side to it, Brienne. You find out how many friends you have. Why, even Princess Shireen came to see me, and she's really a very fine lady. She told me all about the time she broke her wrist when she was a girl. It does seem so strange to think of Shireen ever being a little girl because she's a princess now-and married! Even my imagination has its limits, for I can't imagine THAT. Now, it's so easy to imagine Lady Arya Stark as a little girl. Lady Arya has been to see me fourteen times. Isn't that something to be proud of, Brienne? When a real lady and the mistress of whisperers has so many claims on her time! She is such a cheerful person to have visit you, too. She never tells you it's your own fault and she hopes you'll be a better girl on account of it. Even Lady Lyanna Mormont came to see me. I received her as politely as I could, because I think she was sorry she dared me to walk a ridgepole. If I had been killed she would had to carry a dark burden of remorse all her life. Daena has been a faithful friend. She's sent letters by raven every other day to cheer my lonely heart. But oh, I shall be so glad when I can go to court for I've heard such exciting things about the tournament they are planning for you. The council all think it will do you great honor. Lady Margaery says she has the loveliest singers and tumblers and jugglers and such fascinating storytellers set to perform during the tourney. She dresses beautifully, and her skirts are bigger than anybody else's in King’s Landing, with stylish slashes exposing the underskirts in lavish fabrics. Oh, it's just glorious to think of it. Lady Lyanna says she hates that the tourney was delayed but that is just because now her sisters will be coming to compete for a place in the queensguard and she has no love for her older sisters who lack the fierceness of she-bears, she says. But I think it must be splendid and I believe I shall find that I shall love all the women that compete to be in wear the white cloak."

"There's one thing plain to be seen, Alys," said Brienne, "and that is that your fall off the roof of the smithy hasn't injured your tongue at all."


	20. The Queensguard is Formed

The morning of the tourney broke on a beautiful sun drenched world. It had been a mild summer so far and people had looked forward to warm and fruitful days to help rebuild the Seven Kingdoms. But the nights were still cool enough for dew to collect, transforming King’s Landing into some sparkling palace dusted with the pollen of thousands of flowering plants from the Red Keep’s pleasure gardens. The rose mallows in the promenade stood proud and erect, turning their rosy faces toward the sun; the peach trees were laden heavy with fruit, bowing low to the cobbled paths; and there was the ever present tang of salt blowing in from the bay. The day was glorious and Alys sprung from bed babbling to her chamber maid as she bolted from her rooms and down the corridors.

“Podrick! Oh Podrick!” Alys shouted as she pounded on his door. “Isn’t it a lovely day? I’m so glad it’s a sunshiny day. It almost seems too perfect, doesn’t it? It’s like the whole of the Seven Kingdoms wants to celebrate Lady Brienne today. Why-why-Podrick, is that for _her_?”

Podrick had sheepishly opened the door for the chattering girl and proudly showed her the new Queensguard armor that had been commissioned for Brienne. Jasper hung back, grinning into his reflection as he polished the white shield with increased fervor.

Alys paced around the armor mannequin and eyed it critically. Instead of the scale mail favored by many of the knights she was used to seeing, the brigandine was riveted with bright chromium steel plates and was worn over a spotless white tunic. On a separate mannequin rested the plate armor pieces that would be fastened over the steel reinforced tabard. She ran a hand over some of the pieces and picked up the great helm. “I thought the armor would be silver and white, but this steel seems to shine so much brighter.”

Podrick grinned at her observation. “It’s a new method. Gendry told me about it last time we were at Storm’s End. They add this other alloy to the steel and it makes it rust resistant. The whiter color is a side effect, making it both brighter and stronger than the old silver fastenings. Do you think Ser-I mean my Lady-Brienne will like it?”

“Like it! Oh, Podrick!” Alys laid the helm down and clasped her hands in her characteristic manner. “Podrick, it’s perfectly exquisite. I can never thank you enough for having this made for her. She’ll love it. Now she’ll truly be a knight in shining armor.”

Alys rode to the Queensguard tourney with Lady Margaery and her cousin Elinor in a palanquin with sheer screens of thin green reeds fastened with gold medallions in the shape of roses. The light that filtered through into the litter turned the world a sickly emerald and she begged leave to ride alongside with Jasper Buckler. Their procession filed out the River Gate and rode through the market that crouched between the walls of the city and the Blackwater. As they rounded the curtain wall by the King’s Gate, the land opened up to reveal colorful pavilions that reached all the way to the border of the Kingswood.

“Where is Lady Sansa?” asked Alys when they reached the grandstands.

Margaery said with her usual smirk, “I think the Hand of the Queen has had enough of knights and tournaments.”

“But it’s like the songs,” Alys said in confusion. She quickly was distracted from that train of thought by the parade of contestants.

The rivals for the White Cloaks would compete in elimination combat on the final day of the tournament. In the meantime, they would participate in good natured jousts, melees, single combat, and archery competitions. It was Lady Elinor that pointed out how many of the Free Folk had arrived, but Margaery assured them that the Dornishmen would be tough competition for them at the bow. There was a Crannog woman, who intended to take any fighters unshielded with only her frogspear and net. Alys spotted a feral looking mountain woman from the Black Ears who carried a short sword on both hips. Elia Sand dominated at the lists and Ser Loras whispered in Alys’ ear that she rivaled even him at the lance. There were wildlings with halberds and some of the Mormont women of the north with long hafted axes or heavy spiked maces. By the end of the first day, Margaery’s arm was fair bruised from all the times Alys had gripped her arm in excitement.

It was on the third day of the tourney that Hyle Hunt arrived on the tourney grounds, and Margaery bid Lady Elinor leave so that he could take the seat by Alys. He wore a deep brown tunic over his mail shirt with the sigil of House Hunt emblazoned on the chest in white. His brown hair had grown long and he tied it back into a warrior’s club. He smiled and bowed low over Lady Margaery’s hand and then ruffled the top of Alys’ head.

“We’ll see you crowned the queen of love and beauty at the end of this I’ll wager,” he claimed.

“I hear you’re a man who likes to wager,” Margaery said.

“Aye, I’m a betting man. And I play to win,” Ser Hyle said quietly, turning to stare down at the grounds where the fighters milled about between bouts. He looked as though he was trying to spot someone specific.

Margaery laughed and turned to Alys. “Did you know, Alys, that members of the Kingsguard swear vows of celibacy? There was a time when to be a White Cloak meant foreswearing your inheritance and vowing to never marry or have children.”

Ser Hyle turned sharp eyes on the mistress of coin.

“Do you mean Lady Brienne can’t be my foster mother anymore?” asked Alys, suddenly worried. “Because the Kingsguard make vows just like the Night’s Watch to take no land, no wife, and no children?”

“It’s interesting,” Margaery answered, looking over Alys’ shoulder and meeting Hyle’s eyes, “because it seems that Queen Daenerys requires no such oath. We discussed it in the small council and she feels that motherhood would make a woman that much more determined to keep the Seven Kingdoms peaceful. And as the Mother of Dragons, well, she can change the traditions however she likes.”

Ser Hyle snagged a pitcher of summerwine from a passing serving man. “Wine, my Lady?”

Margaery laughed, holding out her goblet to Alys’ father. “Of course. Let’s drink to the new Lady Commander of the Queensguard.”

The last day of the White Cloak tournament finally arrived, and the tourney goers were in a fever of excitement. The tree of shields was a hotbed of activity as the crowds jostled to keep abreast of the advancement of their favorite fighters. Many of the smallfolk seemed to forget that not too many years ago it would have been unthinkable to allow so many women to compete in a tournament, much less in the main event. But the wars had a way of changing things.

For some, like the women of Bear Island, it had always been natural to wield weapons and defend their homes from raiders. In other cases, too many menfolk had died in some distant campaign for the lions or the wolves or some other faction, leaving the women to fight or to die. Tarth was not the only place in Westeros to start a tradition of training women and farmers and fisherfolk the finer points of the martial arts, and Arms Mistress Thistle would have been rather pleased to see the women of the Seven Kingdoms turnout for the melee.

The women who wanted a white cloak were given leave to choose the weapons and armor of their choice. To Alys’ eyes, Brienne dueled them tirelessly all day. The final challengers filed in as the sun sank low in the sky and in the last bout of the day, Obara Sand strode forward into the fighting pit, striking her short shafted spear three times against a round steel shield adorned with copper with a coiled whip at her hip. The woman was tall, though not as large as Brienne, and carried herself like a warrior in much the same way. Beneath her studded leather armor, Obara’s broad, muscled shoulders pulled at the seams. Her dull brown hair was pulled up in a warrior’s knot on top of her head and she had wiped coal paint on her high cheekbones in an effort to reduce the glare from the sun. Obara saluted Brienne and then fell into a fighter’s stance. Lady Margaery had to cover her ears for the duration of their duel, as in Alys’ great excitement, the girl screamed her lungs out for the rest of the fight. In the end, though, both women conceded they were well matched.

Lady Brienne lined up her chosen few in front of the lists, announcing each in a voice loud enough to be heard in the grandstands and sweeping a snowy cloak around each woman’s shoulders. There was Obara Sand, of course, and her sister Elia. Alys spied Lyanna Mormont, who had fought with a war axe and shield, but there were other women she didn’t recognize. There was a woman from the Riverlands, and it was suggested she had been a refugee that had learned to fight in the Brotherhood without Banners. One of the Mountain Folk earned a place in the queensguard, and there were murmurs aplenty when the name Chella of the Black Ears was whispered in the stands. Even a wildling woman wore the cloak, standing tall with a halberd in hand and long bow slung over her back.

And so the tourney was pronounced a success. The grandstands and tourney grounds were crowded with folk from all over the Seven Kingdoms and the traders left the city with heavy purses. All the fighters did excellently well, but Brienne was the bright particular star of the occasion, as even the most skeptical of old men in the the stands dared not deny.

“Oh, hasn’t it been a brilliant evening?” sighed Alys, when it was all over and she and Jasper were riding back to the Red Keep under a dark, starry sky.

“Everything went off very well,” said Jasper practically as he idly swished the mane of his gelding. “I guess Lady Brienne really is going to stay in King’s Landing then. I must send a letter to Bronzegate.”

“Oh Jasper, think of it! You’re the new squire to the Lady Commander of the Queensguard. You did beautifully with Brienne’s armor. I felt so proud of you when I saw her ride out onto the tourney grounds and the armor just shimmered and glimmered like a star. I said to myself, ‘There now, everyone will know that she has two wonderful squires.’ I was so glad you were honored by her in the speech.”

“Well, Podrick has worked real hard with me, Alys, just as hard as Lady Brienne has worked with you, I’ll own. To be honest, Pod and I wagered on how soon you would get up to trouble at the tourney and now I owe him three copper stars since nothing untoward happened.”

“Oh, I was so nervous during the tournament, Jasper. When Lady Margaery invited me to ride in the palanquin and sit with her in the stands, I couldn’t tell you how I shook when I mounted those stairs. I felt as if a million eyes were looking at me and through me, and for one dreadful moment I was sure they could all see I was just the bastard girl from the brothel and that I had no business sitting with the high lady from Highgarden. Then I thought of the lovely kirtle and tabard in my father’s colors and that the Evenstar from Tarth is my foster mother and I took courage from that. I knew then that I must live up to their expectations, Jasper. So I felt just like warrior going to battle and I rolled my shoulders and climbed those stairs and sat with the important people just as if I belonged there. I tried my very hardest to be on my best behavior, just as Lady Brienne always asks of me. It was strange. I felt that my voice came from very far away, like I was one of those parrots from the Summer Islands and it wasn’t me talking with the ladies at all. It’s a good thing that Daena and I played at being at court so much that I was able to fall back on practiced words or I’m sure I would have said something to disgrace myself. Then when the jousts and the melees and the single combats began, I forgot to be self-conscious. Altogether, I felt much better when my father-doesn’t it seem strange still to hear me say ‘my father’?-when my father came and joined us in the grandstands. And he and Lady Margaery get along just splendid, though I don’t know half the people they talked about. I think they knew eachother before the war, just like he knew Lady Brienne. I really am rather mad at Mistress Tansy and the other ladies at the Secret Rose for keeping him from seeing me all those years.”

“I think it’s awful the way Lady Brienne treats Ser Hyle,” Jasper commented when Alys paused for a breath.

“What would you know about it? You’re just a stupid boy,” Alys said haughtily as she tossed her braids over her shoulder. “Lady Brienne told me all about the nasty game that my father and some other knights played on her when she was a girl. As long as she feels he cannot be forgiven, I will support her. Women need to stick together you know.”

“Well, Podrick says that Ser Hyle absolutely worships her ladyship. Did you know that he proposed to marry her on more than one occasion? He even gave up his captain’s commission in Lord Tarly’s army during the war to be with her,” explained Jasper. “And Podrick says that the whole time they were captured by that cave witch, all Hyle did was worry about Brienne.”

“Well, I don’t care. What is it about boys? They think they can buy affection with their actions. I don’t care if he gave her twenty ropes of rubies or the most beautiful horse in Westeros. If she doesn’t fancy him, she doesn’t fancy him.”

“That may be, but did you see? During that last bout between Lady Brienne and Obara Sand, the plume was knocked clean off of Brienne’s helm. I saw Ser Hyle walk out onto the tourney grounds afterwards and stick the quill through the ties of his shirt. There. What do you think of that, Alys Flowers?”

Alys rode for a few minutes in contemplative silence and then gave the young squire a slight smile. “Well, I’ll own that it is very romantic, and I suppose there is no harm in it.”

King's Landing found it hard to settle down to a humdrum existence again. To Alys in particular things seemed fearfully flat, stale, and unprofitable after the goblet of excitement she had been sipping for weeks. Could she go back to the former quiet pleasures of those faraway days before the tournament? At first, as she told Jasper, she did not really think she could.

"I'm positively certain, Jasper, that life can never be quite the same again as it was in those olden days," she said mournfully, as if referring to a period of at least fifty years back. "Perhaps after a while I'll get used to it, but I'm afraid tournaments spoil people for everyday life. I suppose that is why Brienne left me at home for most of the tournaments. Brienne is such a sensible person. It must be a great deal better to be sensible; but still, I don't believe I'd really want to be a sensible person because they don't make room in their life for fun. Septa Roelle says there is no danger of my ever being one, but you can never tell. I feel just now that I may grow up to be sensible yet. But perhaps that is only because I am tired. I simply couldn't sleep last night for ever so long. I just lay away and imagined the last day of the tournament over and over agin. That's one splendid thing about such affairs-it is so lovely to look back at them."

Eventually, however, King's Landing slipped back into its old groove and took up its old interests. To be sure, the tourney left traces, as exhibited by the fallout between several houses. Caila Florent and Taisa Tyrell, who had quarreled over an awarded point in the joust, reignited a generations-long dispute in the Reach and a promising friendship of three years was broken up. Elia and Obara Sand were no longer speaking, because Obara had told Elia that her swordplay was akin to a chicken running around with its head cut off although Elia still qualified for a white cloak. None of the Naylands would have anything to do with the Vyprens, because the Vyprens had declared that the Naylands had too many daughters in the tournament, and the Naylands had retorted that the Vyprens were not capable of moving up the tree of shields anyhow. Finally, Lyanna Mormont thrashed Faedra Peat, because Faedra Peat had said that Brienne Tarth put on airs about her fighting ability. Consequently, Alys Flowers ventured to speak to the fierce Lyanna in thanks for her defense of her foster mother and the two became fast friends despite the age difference. With the exception of these trifling frictions, work in the Seven Kingdoms went on with regularity and smoothness.

The weeks slipped by. It was an unusually hot summer, with such excessive heat that Brienne sent Alys and her younger squire Jasper to the cool chambers of the Red Keep's basement in the heat of day. On Alys' birthday they were tripping lightly down the wide, shallow stairs to the room where Lady Arya had whispered the dragon skulls were kept, keeping their eyes and ears alert amid the quiet solitide of the lower level in fear of startling some ancient Targaryen ghost.

"Just think, Jasper, I'm thirteen years old today," remarked Alys in an awed voice. "I can scarcely realize that I'm a woman now. I know, I got my first moon's blood three months ago, but when I woke this morning it seemed to me that everything must be different. You've been thirteen for a year now, so I suppose it doesn't seem such a novelty to you as it does to me. It makes life seem so much more interesting. In two more years I'll be really grown up. Brienne says my father will need to provide a dowry for me. It's a great comfort to think that I'll be able to set up a household of my own."

"Do you mean to take a husband then?" asked Jasper, who's ears had turned rather red in embarrassment.

"Not if I can help it. I really do not have a use for men," said Alys disdainfully. "Oh, you and Podrick are well enough, I suppose, but I really do not understand what the excitement is. I think I'll set up house on my own and ask Daena Barrens to come live with me. I do love her ever so much and I miss her terribly since she's away on Tarth."

“If you won’t take a husband, how will you get children?” Jasper asked, genuinely perplexed. He thought that was what little girls thought of all the time.

“Do you even realize who you’re talking to?” said Alys haughtily. “I can take in an orphan or a foster, just like Lady Brienne. I’m trying to be as much like Lady Brienne as I possibly can, for I think she’s perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading.


	21. An Unfortunate River Maid

“Of course I’ll be the defender,” said Brienne. “I want you to ambush me, and watch how I fend off your attacks. Then you’ll each take a turn.”

“Are you sure?” asked Lyanna Mormont skeptically. “I don’t mind going on the offensive – you know how much I love a duel - but won’t we get in eachothers’ way if we come at you all at once?”

“No, Brienne is right,” Elia Sand conceded. “Training against three or four swordsmen is more like an actual battle so we’ll be better prepared. Not everyone is as honorable as you northerners, Lyanna.”

“Wars aren’t won in single combat except in the stories,” asserted the wildling woman Bodil as she found a tree branch on which to hang her bow and quiver. “As a spearwife, many times I fought several men at once. And when the Free Folk would fight you southron folk, we would find a general or a bannerman or whoever had the tallest hat and swarm him, bringing him down quickly.”

“It’s ridiculous to trust that the enemy will circle and wait to attack you one by one. It will happen, yes, but not during a pitched battle,” explained Brienne. “Garlan Tyrell makes it a habit to train against several opponents at once, in fact.”

They were standing on the bank of the Blackwater Rush, above where the Gold Road crosses the swift river, where a little headland fringed with birches ran out from the bank; at its tip was a limestone outcropping that hung out over the water that was well used by local fishermen in the Crownlands. Obara and Chella were spending the afternoon with the queen, leaving Brienne to take the other white cloak recruits out for a little terrain training on the river’s edge.

Brienne had spent most of the past four months drilling the new queensguard, both in King’s Landing and in the countryside. Ser Goodwin had always made it a habit to spar with Brienne in a variety of locations to help her prepare for real fighting, and she meant to do the same with the white cloaks. It had been Brienne’s idea to practice at the river today. She frequently remembered the tales in the city which told of many knights fallen in combat at the Battle of the Blackwater purely because they were unused to fighting in the churned mud of river valley. She had analyzed and parsed that battle and torn it to pieces in general until it one believed she was actually there to witness the melee. Thankfully, she had unlimited access to Pod, who had first hand experience at that battle, but Brienne was devoured by secret regret that she had not been there to fight in the vanguard with the remains of Renly’s army, pushing Stannis back into the bay to be burned for his treachery against King Renly.

Altogether, Brienne’s plan to drill with multiple opponents was hailed with enthusiasm. The queensguard had discovered months ago that each excelled in different weapon types, and so they each planned to attack their Commander with a variety of weapons to see how her methods of defense would change in a group charge. Bodil preferred the spear, buckler, and bow as most Free Folk did. Elia, who normally excelled at the lance, settled on the whip and dagger which was a favorite method of her older sister’s. Lyanna Mormont, like many women from Bear Island, hefted a sleek war axe. But unlike some of her sisters, she liked to wield a short sword in her other hand. The she-bear was equally adept at blocking or attacking with either hand, making her a formidable opponent indeed.

At first they circled one another, and Brienne waited, just as Ser Goodwin had taught her, and Bodil struck first, sweeping her spear hard and low. She side stepped it easily, knowing it was meant for her knees.

Elia cracked a whip above her head then, and the leather made a whirring noise as it flickered though the air and licked at Brienne’s ear. The sharp lash made Brienne’s eyes water and she brought her blade up, blocking the slash at her face.

She saw Lyanna’s right shoulder drop, and she braced for the jab of a short sword, but the Young Bear deftly switched her stance and instead swung the axe from her left hand instead, scoring a hit on Brienne’s pauldron.

Brienne charged at the wildling woman, and feinted high. When Bodil brought up the spear haft for a block, Brienne slammed her boot down the front of her shin. Bodil had chosen to fight in lightweight leather armor, and she flinched backwards at the abrupt pain, but quickly regained her footing.

The Sand Snake grinned at her then, and suddenly, Elia stepped inside Brienne’s reach and brought up her leaf shaped dagger point under her arm, but Brienne twisted at the last minute and slid the edge of her short sword against the other woman’s throat. Lyanna charged in and swept it aside with her left arm, drawing blood but saving Elia’s neck from the worst of it. The front of Elia’s iron studded shirt, none too clean to begin with, slowly darkened with the blood that streamed down from under her ear.

Bodil brought up her spear as if in a mock salute and pulled the shield from her back and gripped it. Brienne circled her and Lyanna, waiting for the bleeding to weaken Elia. She bit down hard on the scar tissue in her cheek until she could taste the spike of copper.

It was only a heartbeat before she saw the wildling woman stumble. She saw Bodil’s eyes widen when the realization hit her. Brienne lunged then with her white shield, meaning to bash it into the wilding woman. But Lyanna shouldered in at the last moment, taking the knock on her side instead and stayed upright by bracing one foot behind her. Brienne could feel the steel slide against the Lyanna’s shoulder as Bodil jabbed her spear at Brienne’s feet. At the same time, Elia regained her composure and cracked her whip at Brienne’s legs. It wasn’t enough to dent her steel boots, but that was not what the Sand Snake and the wildling wanted. The spearhead planted in the dirt and Bodil twisted the haft, using it as a lever to pry at Brienne’s legs. Elia, meanwhile, reeled in on the leather whip, trying to pull at Brienne’s considerable weight with her own. Brienne lost her balance and shuffled backwards.

She whirled and reset her feet, squaring her body behind her shield. A quick scan of the headland showed her where each of the women hung back waiting for her attack.

“What are you waiting for?” she chastised her recruits. “Bandits and assassins won’t wait for you to catch your breath. Come at me!”

For several more minutes, Brienne lunged and plunged with shield and sword holding off the attacks of the other women and enjoying the thrill of her situation to the full. Here she was a shining white knight training her own troupe of guardsmen for the highest office in the Seven Kingdoms. She relished the camaraderie she’d found with her fellow white cloaks and found she wasn’t that freakish and different after all, despite all that Roelle had told to her in her younger days. Then something happened not at all romantic. The headland began to crumble. In a very few moments it was necessary for Brienne to drop her shield and sword, scrabble for the rapidly disappearing river’s edge and gaze blankly at the rushing muddy water that suddenly appeared beneath her boots. All the feet pounding and lunging in full armor they’d done had finally weakned the undercut earth enough to free it from the bank. Brienne did not know this, as the undercut was not visible from above the water, but it did not take her long to realize that she was in a dangerous plight. At this rate Brienne would plunge into the tumbling rapids and sink long before the other women could catch her.

Brienne gave one gasping little scream which nobody ever heard; she parted her lips to call for help just as the water rushed in her mouth, but she did not lose her self-possession. There was one chance – just one.

“I was frightened,” she told Alys the next day, “and it seemed like years while I flailed and spun in the dark waters down the Blackwater toward the bridge. I prayed most earnestly that the Crone would see fit to guide the current towards one of the bridge piles for me to climb up on it.”

But that was a lie that Brienne told to her foster daughter, as she spared not a thought for the Seven and plotted her own rescue. She’d always been a proficient swimmer, having grown up on the island. So every time the waters pulled her down, she stripped another piece of armor off, dropping it to the depths of the Blackwater. First came her boots, allowing her to gain purchase on the river bed with her bare feet and push off and up toward the surface to fill her burning lungs with fresh air. Then down, down, down again, and Brienne shrugged from the heavy plate that was strapped over her chest and back. Over and over, she sank, stripped, pushed, and breathed, just to sink again. The rushing water pushed her into a pile for a minute and she flung her helm free at the last and scrabbled for purchase on the granite ashlars of the bridge support. And there she was, a thoroughly drenched maid clad only in her small clothes, clinging to that slippery old pile with no way of getting up or down. It was a very uncomfortable position, but it was better than a watery grave. Only then, safely from the reach of the churning river, did she send a grateful prayer to the Crone.

Her helm floated under the bridge and then promptly sank in midstream. Lyanna, Elia, and Bodil, already waiting on the lower headland, saw the white plume disappear before their very eyes and had not a doubt but that Brienne had gone down with it. For a moment they stood still, white as sheets, frozen with horror at the tragedy; then, bellowing at the tops of their voices, they started on a frantic run up through the woods, never pausing to rest their horses as they crossed the main road to glance the way of the bridge. Brienne, clinging desperately to her precarious foothold, saw the flying forms of their matched bay mares and heard their shrieks. Help would soon come, but meanwhile her position was a very untenable one.

The minutes passed by, each seeming an hour to the unfortunate Lady Commander. Why didn't somebody come? Where had the White Cloaks gone? Perhaps they'd given her up for dead and were not coming back. Suppose nobody ever came! Suppose she grew so tired and cramped that she could hold on no longer! Brienne looked at the wicked green depths below her, wavering with long, oily shadows, and shivered. Her stamina faltered, suggesting a gruesome possibility to her.

Then, just as she thought she really could not endure the ache in her arms and wrists another moment, Hyle Hunt came riding over the bridge in the direction of King's Landing.

At a hoarse cry from Brienne's blue lips, Hyle looked down over the side of the bridge and, much to his amazement, beheld a pale, freckled face look up at him with big, blue - but scornful - eyes.

"Brienne of Tarth! By the gods, how did you get there?" he exclaimed. Without waiting for an answer he rode close to the low wall of the bridge and leaned out over the pile, extending his hand. There was no help for it; Brienne, clinging to Hyle Hunt's wrist, scrambled up and over the algae covered stone pile of the bridge. She dropped immediately to the ground, drabbled and furious, and finally allowed herself the luxury of emptying the contents of the entire Blackwater over the side. Only afterwards, as she wiped the back of her hand over her mouth, did she realize that she was clad only in her dripping small clothes, the water rendering the white linen rather transparent. It was certainly extremely difficult to be dignified under the circumstances.

"What happened, Brienne?" asked Hyle.

"We were sparring," explained Brienne frigidly, without even looking at her rescuer, "and the ground gave way beneath my boots, sending me into the river. My armor was pulling me under, and so I stripped it off and swam to the bridge pile to avoid the stones in the rapids. The queensguard went for help. Will you be kind enough to loan me your horse blanket?"

Hyle obligingly swept off his travel cloak and offered it. Brienne, disdaining assistance, fastened it about her shoulders herself.

"I'm in your debt, ser," she said haughtily as she turned away, prepared to walk to find her horse in only a cloak and her small clothes. But Hyle sprung across the path and now laid a detaining hand on her arm.

"Brienne," he said hurriedly, "look here. Can't we be friends? I AM sorry for what happened at Highgarden, and again at Bitterbridge. I vow I meant no harm, only a bit of fun. Besides, it's so long ago. I always did enjoy your company-the talks we had in camp or when we would spar. I never lied about that. Let's be friends - and not just for Alys' sake. My offer of marriage still stands.  I think we have a lot to offer to one another."

For a moment Brienne hesitated. She had an odd, newly awakened consciousness under all her outraged dignity that the half-hopeful, half-eager expression in Hyle's hazel eyes was something that was very good to see. Her heart gave a quick strange little beat. But the bitterness of her old grievance promptly stiffened up her wavering determination. That scene of - what, almost ten years ago - flashed back into her recollection as vividly as if it had taken place yesterday. Hyle had pretended to court her, him and the others, and brought about her disgrace before all of Renly's camp and court. Her resentment, which to other and older people might be as laughable as its cause, was seemingly in no whit allayed and softened by time. She hated Hyle Hunt! She would never forgive him!

"No," she said coldly. "I shall never be friends with you, Hyle Hunt, and I don't want to be. I'll continue to keep a civil tongue when Alys is concerned, but that is all you can hope for. Certainly not marriage!"

“He won’t have you, you know. Your Kingslayer,” Hyle said with a sneer.

“Watch your tongue, Hunt. Our queen has christened him Goldenhand now, and you would do well to abide by her wishes.” Brienne pretended her cheeks were red with anger and not the embarrassment that her feelings toward Ser Jaime were so transparent.

“The queen be-damned. I’ve seen nine kings and two queens in as many years. But that’s not what I’m at. You went on and on to Lady Stoneheart about how your precious Jaime changed. He’s an honorable man now. Do you really think he’d forgo his vows to marry you? Or bed you? If he broke his vows to be with you, he’d not be the honorable man you’re so determined for him to be.”

“It is no concern of yours!” She whipped around and sketched an insolent bow. “I thank you, ser, for your assistance, but I find I have no more use for you.”

"All right!" Hyle sprang into his saddle with an angry color in his cheeks, spurring his horse to rear in a circle. "I'll never presume to be friends with you again, Brienne Tarth. And I don't care either!"

His horse pulled away in long strides, and Brienne went up the steep ferny path under the maples. She held her head very high, but she was conscious of an odd feeling of regret. She almost wished she'd answered Hyle differently. Of course, he had insulted her terribly, but still. Altogether, Brienne rather thought it would be a relief to sit down and have a good cry. She was really quite unstrung, for the reaction from her fright and cramped clinging was making itself felt.

Halfway up the path she met Elia and Lyanna rushing back to the river in a state narrowly removed from positive frenzy. The had found no one at a nearby farm, but had lifted a rope from one of the outbuildings. Bodil was, at that very moment, wading in the current with the rope tied about her waist, feeling around with her spear and fishing up bits of chromium steel armaments. Elia explained when the wildling woman had found the empty armor, Lyanna had assured them all that Brienne must have stripped and swum to shore.

“Commander Brienne,” gasped Bodil, fairly falling on the muddy bank with the last of the armor in tow, “We thought you had drowned and Elia said that you worship the Seven and that it was the least we could do to bring back your body for the Silent Sisters.”

“Where did you come out?” asked Elia. “We swept the banks looking for your body.”

“I climbed up on one of the piles,” explained Brienne wearily, “and Hyle Hunt of all people came along and handed me up onto the bridge.”

Lyanna barked a laugh as she reached out to finger the wool cloak with the sigil of House Hunt still draped over Brienne’s shoulders and raised her eyebrows at the transparency of her clothes. “I don’t doubt you properly thanked him.”

“If I’m lucky, I’ll never have to speak with that man again,” Brienne said with a flash of her eyes, momentarily feeling her spirits return. “Ugh, I think his daughter is starting to rub off on me, as I can never remember quite so many accidents – even during the war years – following my every step.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wait, what? What was that about Jaime? Here's a [deleted scene](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2765393) that explains what happened to him. I felt that it didn't match the style of this story and took it out.


	22. The Queen's Class is Organzied

Almost half a year had passed since Brienne had taken up the command of the queensguard. She was home on Tarth, with Pod, Jasper, and Alys in tow, to take care of matters on the island. Becoming the white cloak commander had not excused her from her duties as a Storm Lord, as there was no named heir as of yet. In this brief respite from King’s Landing, she’d left Obara in command in her absence. Brienne set her quill to the side and reached for the blotting papers, pressing it against the newest work orders as she tried to stretch out a kink in her calf. Her eyes were tired and she thought vaguely that she must see the maester about them, for her eyes had grown tired very often of late.

It was nearly dark, for the full island twilight had fallen around Evenfall Hall, and the only light in the study came from the dancing red flames in the braziers set about the room. Alys was curled up on the hearth rug, gazing into that joyous glow where the sunshine of a hundred summers was being distilled from the maple cordwood. She had been reading, but her book had slipped to the floor, and now she was dreaming, with a smile on her parted lips. Glittering castles in the Reach were shaping themselves out of the mists and rainbows of her lively fancy; adventures wonderful and enthralling were happening to her in cloudland - adventures that always turned out triumphantly and never involved her in scrapes like those of actual life.

Brienne looked at her with a tenderness that would never have been suffered to reveal itself in any clearer light than that soft mingling of fireshine and shadow. The lesson of a love that should display itself easily in spoken word and open look was one Brienne could never learn - perhaps as a result of growing up without her mother. But she had learned to love this slim, hazel-eyed girl with an affection all the deeper and stronger from its very undemonstrativeness. Her love made her afraid of being unduly indulgent, indeed. She had an uneasy feeling that it was rather sinful to set one's heart so intensely on any person as she had set hers on Alys, and perhaps she performed a sort of unconscious penance for this by being stricter and more critical than if the girl had been less dear to her. Certainly Alys herself had no idea how Brienne loved her. She sometimes thought wistfully that Brienne was very hard to please and distinctly lacking in sympathy and understanding. But she always checked the thought reproachfully, remembering what she owed to Brienne.

"Alys," said Brienne abruptly, "Grand Maester Sarella sent a raven about you this afternoon when you were out with Daena."

Alys came back from her other world with a start and a sigh.

"Did she? Oh, I'm sorry I wasn't in. Why didn't you call me, Brienne? Daena and I were only over in the barrens. It's lovely in the grikes now, with all the summer flowers blooming their hearts out in the little crevices. All the little wood things - the firs and the holly and the cranberries - have gone to sleep, just as if somebody had tucked them away until the next winter under a blanket of summer grass. I think it was a little green child of the forest with a rainbow scarf that came tiptoeing along the last moonlight night and did it. Daena wouldn't say much about that, though, because she's afraid of the children of the forest. Daena has never forgotten the scolding that her mother gave her about imagining ghosts and witches and children of the forest living in the great ravines that are all misted over from the waterfalls on the island. It had a very bad effect on Daena's imagination. It blighted it. Septa Roelle says that Arms Mistress Thistle is a blighted being. I asked Cook Sara why Thistle was blighted, and Sara said she guessed it was because her husband had died in the war and no other young man will have her. Sara thinks of nothing but men, and the older she gets the worse she is. Men are all very well in their place, but it doesn't do to drag them into everything, does it? Daena and I are thinking seriously of promising each other that we will never marry but be old maids like you and live together forever. Daena hasn't quite made up her mind though, because she thinks perhaps it would be nobler to get an heir on some man so that she can take over the Barrens Watchtower instead of one of her brothers. Daena and I talk a great deal about serious subjects now. It is such a solemn thing to be almost fourteen, Brienne. Grand Maester Sarella took a lot of us girls down to the Red Keep Library the week before we left and gave us all a talking to. She said we couldn't be too careful what habits we formed and what ideals we acquired in our youth because we shouldn't 'hang our hat' on someone else to provide for us. She said that the wars demonstrated that to many of the folk in Westeros."

"Well," Brienne explained uring Alys’ brief pause of breath, "Sarella wants to organize a class among the youth in King's Landing - much as I and Maester Flint did here on Tarth - who would like to study the same topics they teach at the Citadel. She intends to give the lessons herself each day in a variety of subjects. And she sent a raven to Podrick and I if we would like to have you join it. What do you think about it yourself, Alys? Would you like to go to the Queen's class and study a maester's subjects?"

"Oh, Brienne!" Alys straightened to her knees and clasped her hands. "It's been the dream of my life - that is, for the last six months we were in King’s Landing, ever since Princess Shireen started inviting me to sup with her and the Grand Maester. But I didn't say anything about it, because I supposed it would be dreadfully uncommon for a bastard to ‘prentice."

"You don't need to worry about that. When Podrick and I agreed to bring you up for your father, we resolved we would do the best we could for you and give you a good education. I believe in a girl being fitted to make her own way in life whether she ever has to or not. You'll always have a home here at Evenfall Hall as long as I am here, but nobody knows what is going to happen in this uncertain world, and it's just as well to be prepared. If I learned anything the last ten years, it's that. So you can join the Queen's class if you like, Alys."

"Oh, Brienne, thank you." Alys flung her arms about Brienne's waist and looked up earnestly into her face. "I'm extremely grateful to you and Podrick. I'll study as hard as I can and do my very best to be a credit to you and to Tarth. I think I can hold my own in anything if I work hard, since you've gone to such trouble to have Maester Flint teach me so much the past three years. Do you think that if I learn enough subjects, I might be fit to be a maester myself?"

"I dare say you'll get along well enough. Sarella says you are bright and clever." Not for worlds would Brienne have told Alys just was the Grand Maester had said about her in that letter. That would have been to pamper vanity. "You needn't rush to any extreme of killing yourself over your books. There is no hurry. You won't be actually entering the Citadel, just studying the same subjects that the maester deems would help any person be independent-especially if you have need to pursue a profession.”

"I shall take more interest than ever in my studies now," said Alys blissfully, "because I have a purpose in life. Septa Roelle says everybody should have a purpose in life and pursue it faithfully. Only she says we must first make sure that it is a worthy purpose. I would call it a worthy purpose to want to be a maester of a keep just like old Flint here at Evenfall, wouldn't you, Brienne? I think it's a very noble profession."

The Queen’s class was organized in due time when Brienne and her household returned to the Crownlands. Jasper Buckler, Alys Flowers, Tommen Goldenhand, Tyrion Tanner, Rickon Stark, Marei Waters, and Merydeth Cole joined it. Daena Barrens did not, as her mother saw fit to keep her working at the watchtower on Tarth. This seemed nothing short of a calamity to Alys, because for the first time she saw the true difference in their stations and the separation of the futures. On the evening when the Queen’s class first gathered in Sarella’s tower at the Red Keep, Alys gazed out one of the arrow loops despondently imagining Daena walking slowly on the parapet of the tower with perhaps a new friend on her arm. It was all the former could do to keep her attention on the lesson and not rush impulsively down to the docks and make sail for her sapphire isle and waiting friend. A lump came into her throat, and she hastily retired behind the pages of her uplifted Valyrian grammar to hide the tears in her eyes. Not for worlds would Alys have allowed the Grand Maester’s other students see those tears.

“But, oh, Brienne, I really felt that I had tasted the bitterness of death, as the septon said in his speech at the Sept of Baelor last week, when I imagined Daena wave goodbye from the Tarth docks,” she said mournfully that night. “I thought how splendid it would have been if Daena had only been going to study with the Queen’s class, too. But we can’t have things perfect in this imperfect world, as Septa Roelle says. Septa Roelle isn’t exactly a comforting person sometimes, but there’s no doubt she says a great many very true things. And I think the Queen’s class is going to be extremely interesting. Jasper and Marei are just going to study to be heirs and landholders. That is the height of their ambition. Jasper says that he will only study for two years though, as he intends to be married and go home to Bronzegate and let his wife manage things while he makes the tourney rounds. Merydeth says that she will study as long as she can and try to join the Citadel when she can afford the trip to Oldtown so she can be a maester just like Sarella and never, never marry, because you are paid a salary for being a maester, but a husband won’t pay you anything, and growls if you ask for a share in the egg and butter money. I expect Merydeth speaks from mournful experience, for Lady Margaery whispered to me that Merydeth’s father Criston is a perfect old crank and beats her mother for being too independent minded. I don’t blame Merydeth one bit for wanting to leave for Oldtown and earn her own way. Rickon said that he is learning for education’s sake, because he won’t have to take the lordship in the North OR take a trade; he says of course it is different with bastards who are living on charity – but Grand Maester Sarella shut him down REAL quick like because she confessed that SHE is a bastard and the Conclave evidently felt a bastard was good enough to serve as the senior member of the order, advise the throne, and sit on the small council. And then she shamed him for holding those beliefs because wasn’t he raised in the same household as the Lord Commander of the Watch, Jon Snow? Tommen said that he wants to learn the healing arts and help sick animals. Brienne, did you KNOW that Tommen Goldenhand used to be THE King Tommen? Nobody warned me! I felt so ashamed I thought my face would burn right up. It’s so nice that the Queen let him stay here where he grew up and be tutored with other children. Lady Margaery told me he is a very nice boy and once he was married to her but it wasn’t a REAL marriage and the High Septon anulled their marriage and it made her happy because her dear father, the Seven bless his soul, kept marrying her off to different men so she could be queen and all those other boys died and she didn’t want that to happen to Tommen because he was so sweet and innocent. She told me to pay real close attention to Grand Maester Sarella during my studies, but pay even closer attention to my classmates. Lady Margaery says the Queen’s class is the future of politics in the Seven Kingdoms, but I don’t think so because it’s only rascals that get on in politics and none of my classmates are wicked like that.”

“You’re right, Alys. The queen spared many lives when she took the Iron Throne, much to the relief of any number of worried families,” said Brienne, thinking of Jaime and his two remaining children.

“Lady Brienne,” Alys ventured after a long pause. “My mother aimed to be a miller before she became a whore. Did my father ever want to be anything other than a sworn shield or hedge knight?”

“I don’t happen to know what Hyle Hunt’s ambition in life is – if he has any,” said Brienne scornfully. She immediately regretted the tone of her voice when she saw Alys flinch and thought perhaps she spoke too harshly of the girl’s father in Alys’ presence.

There was open rivalry between Hyle and Brienne now at all the tourneys. Previously the rivalry had been rather onesided, but there was no longer any doubt that Hyle was as determined to win the nail money at the lists as Brienne was. He was a foeman worthy of her steel, though Brienne noticed many of the tactics he used were ones she had practiced with him in Tarly’s camp when Renly had called his banners. He was using her tricks to win sword bouts. The other members of the Queensguard tacitly acknowledged their Commander’s ambition to beat the hedge knight at all the arms competitions, and never dreamed of trying to compete with them when both their sigils appeared on the tree of shields.

Since the day by the Blackwater when she had refused to listen to his plea for forgiveness, Hyle, save for the aforesaid determined rivalry, had evinced no recognition whatever of the existence of Brienne of Tarth. He talked and jested with the other women at the Queen’s court, exchanged books and blacksmiths’ puzzles with them, discussed troop movements and swordsmanship with the other white cloaks, or sometimes walked them back to their suites from the armory or a tournament. But Brienne of Tarth he simply ignored, and Brienne found out that it is not pleasant to be ignored – not anymore. This was almost in direct opposition to how she had felt as a girl, praying to the Maiden that courtiers and common folk alike would avert their eyes from her freakish form. It was in vain that she told herself with a grimace that she did not care. Deep down in her wayward, feminine heart, she knew that she did care, and that if she had that chance of the Blackwater Rush again she would think twice about her answer. All at once, as it seemed, and to her secret dismay, she found that the old resentment she had cherished against him was gone – gone just when she most needed it sustaining power. Over and over again, she tried to remember the humiliation in Tarly’s encampment. But suddenly, all she saw in memory was the look on Hyle’s face as they laughed together in camp over firelit tales or the sincerity in his voice when he present her with the book of hero tales. It was in vain that she recalled every incident and emotion of that memorable occasion when Lord Randyll told her of the wager and she tried to feel the old satisfying anger. That day by the bridge had witnessed its last spasmodic flicker. Brienne realized that she had forgiven without knowing it when Hyle when he and Podrick swung beside her at Hollow Hill. Perhaps she felt he’d already hung once for his transgressions. But it was too late.

And at least neither Hyle nor anybody else, not even Alys, should ever suspect how sorry she was and how much she wished she hadn’t been so proud. She determined to bury this regret. And she did it so successfully that Hyle, who possibly was not quite so indifferent as he seemed, could not console himself with any belief that Brienne felt his retaliatory scorn. The only comfort he had was that she didn’t seem to fawn at Ser Jaime in the same way as before and he took some small pleasure in imagining his harsh words at the bridge at least spared her breaking her heart for a man who could not wed her.

Otherwise, the summer days seemed to pass away in a round of pleasant duties for Brienne as the Commander of the white cloaks and for Alys the days slipped by like golden beads on the necklace of the years. She was happy, eager, interested; there were lessons to be learned and honor to be won; delightful books to read; new pieces to be practiced in Sarella’s workshops; pleasant afternoons watching the white cloaks practice at the training yard; and then, almost before the Tarth household realized it, it was time again to return to Evenfall Hall.

Alys’ studies palled just a wee bit then; the Queen’s class, left behind in Sarella’s suite of rooms while the other young people at the keep scattered to the green lanes and leafy woodcuts in the Godswood, looked wistfully out of the windows and discovered that Dothraki verbs and Valyrian smithing techniques had somehow lost the tang and zest they had possessed in the crisp early months of their studies. Even Alys and Merydeth lagged and grew indifferent. Teacher and taught alike were glad when the season was ended and the time for them to return to their various holdings and tend to the needs of vassal houses stretched out before them.

“But you’ve done good work this past year,” Grand Maester Sarella told them on the last evening, “and you deserve a break while your parents tend to your holdings. Have the best time you can in the out-of-door world and lay in a good stock of health and ambition to carry you through next year. It wil be the tug of war, you know – the last year before some of you reach your majority and can take a hand in rulership of your holdings without a regent or lord protector to watch your lands.” This last, Sarella directed at Jasper and some of the older students who were training as heirs to an estate.

When Brienne and her household returned to Tarth the following week, Alys climed up to her chamber, stacked all her dusty tomes in an old trunk, locked it, and tossed the key on the washstand.

“I’m not even going to look at a history book while we’re away from King’s Landing,” she told Brienne. “I’ve studied as hard all the year as I possibly could and I’ve pored over the alchemical formulas until I know every potion and tonic in the first ledger off by heart, even when the recipes are scribbled in Valyrian. I just feel tired of everything sensible and I’m going to let my imagination run riot for the months we have on the island. Oh, you needn’t be alarmed, Brienne. I’ll only let it run riot within reasonable limits. But I want to have a good jolly time this summer, for maybe it’s the last summer I can pretend I’m still a girl and not a woman. Septa Roelle says that if I keep stretching out next year as I’ve done this year, I’ll have to put on longer skirts. She says I’m all running to legs and eyes, though not as bad as you. And when I put on longer skirts I shall feel that I have to live up to them and be very dignified. I think this will be a jolly visit at Evenfall this season. Dalla Barrens says that some evening she’ll take Daena and me over to the Broken Mast and have dinner there when the ships come from the Free Cities. She says they always have mummers aboard ship, and I think it would be a dazzling sight to see the wild players all dressed up in costume and the stories they act out. It’s supposed to be very different from the performances put on by our Westerosi minstrels. And don’t worry, Dalla said to promise you that she’ll make sure that Daena and I will only have cider. To be certain, I’ll never drink ale again. I’ll never forget that night I vomited on the Lowtown road to my dying day.”

Septa Roelle came up the next week to find out why Brienne had not been at the sept the morning before. When Brienne did not attend services at the sept while in residence on Tarth, island folk knew there was something wrong at Evenfall Hall.

“Podrick was thrown from that new gelding yesterday,” Brienne explained, “and I didn’t feel like leaving him until Maester Flint set his arm. He’s alright now, but he’ll need to wear a plaster for awhile. Should I ring for Sara to bring some tea?”

“Well, seeing you’re so pressing, perhaps I might as well stay,” said Septa Roelle, who had not the slightest intention of doing anything else.

Septa Roelle and Brienne sat comfortably in the keep’s study while Alys brought up the tea and lemoncakes from the kitchens herself instead of one of the scullery maids. She served the older woman so fluidly and with such aplomb to defy even Septa Roelle’s criticism.

“I must say that Alys has turned out a real smart girl, despite being a bastard,” admitted Roelle, as Brienne accompanied her down the lane to the septa’s little stone cottage at sunset. “She must be a great help to you.”

“She is,” said Brienne, “and she’s more steady and reliable now. I used to be afraid she’d never get over her featherbrained ways, but she has and I wouldn’t be afraid to trust her in anything now.”

“I never would have thought she’d have turn out so well that first day I was here three years ago,” confessed Septa Roelle. “The Seven help me, shall I ever forget that tantrum of hers! When I went home that night I prayed to the Crone to guide you to discipline her properly the way I had with you. ‘My Lady Brienne will live to rue the day she took on a bastard’ I confessed to the Crone. But I was mistaken and I’m glad of it, despite what the Faith has taught me these many years about bastardy. I’m not one of those kinds of people, Brienne, as can never be brought to own up that they’ve made a mistake. No, that was never my way, thank the Seven. I did make a mistake in judging Alys, but it was no wonder, for a more odd, unexpected witchling of a child there never was in this world, that’s what. There was no figuring her out by the rules that worked with all the other children I raised over the years. It’s nothing short of wonderful how she’s improved these three years, but especially in looks. She’s a real pretty girl, though I can’t say I wasn’t afraid she might turn out as ungainly or plain in looks as you did. I like more snap and color, like her friend Daena Barrens or your friend the Lady Sansa. But their looks are real showy. Somehow – I don’t know how it is but when Alys is together with Daena, though she isn’t half as handsome, she makes her friends look kind of common and overdone – something like those white lilies that stand up all regal next to those big, red bleeding stars that bloom on the side of the road to town, that’s what.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the month delay in updates. These were ready for awhile, but RL intervened. I posted 3 chapters today, so that I hope that helps make up for the wait.


	23. A Season of Study

Alys had her "good" summer and enjoyed it wholeheartedly. She and Daena fairly lived outdoors, reveling in all the delights that Lowtown and the barrens and blooming fields and Tarth Island as a whole afforded. Brienne offered no objections to Alys's traipsings. Maester Flint who had not seen Alys for the year she studied at King’s Landing happened upon her one day on the tower stair, looked her over sharply, screwed up his mouth, shook his head, and sent a message to Brienne by another person. It was:

"Keep that hazel eyed girl of yours in the open air all summer and don't let her read books until she gets more spring into her step."

This message wholly frightened Brienne. She read Alys's death warrant by consumption in it unless it was scrupulously obeyed. As a result, Alys had the golden summer of her life as far as freedom and frolic went. She walked, rowed, berried, and dreamed to her heart's content; and when the season came to return to the Crownlands she was bright-eyed and alert, with a step that would have satisfied the maester at Evenfall Hall and a heart full of ambition and zest once more.

"I feel just like studying with might and main," she declared as she brought her books down from her chamber to have them loaded for travel. "Oh, you good old friends, I'm glad to see your honest faces once more--yes, even you, Apothecary of Sothoryros. I've had a perfectly beautiful summer, Brienne, and now I'm rejoicing as a strong man to run a race, as Septon Bandir said last week at the sept. Doesn't Septon Bandir preach magnificent sermons? Septa Roelle says he is improving every day and the first thing we know some mainland sept will gobble him up and then we'll be left and have to turn Roelle as our sole representative of the Faith once more. But I don't see the use of meeting trouble halfway, do you, Brienne? I think it would be better just to enjoy Septon Bandir while we have him. If I were a man I think I'd be a septon. They can have such an influence for good, if their theology is sound; and it must be thrilling to preach splendid sermons and stir your hearers' hearts. Why can't women be septons, Brienne? I asked Septa Roelle that and she was shocked and said it would be a scandalous thing. She said there might be septas and silent sisters and she believed there were female red priests in Asshai, but thank goodness we hadn't got to that stage in Westeros yet and she hoped we never would. But I don't see why. I think women would make splendid septons. When there is anything important to be done for the people or for the throne it is the women that have to do the real work. Just look at Queen Daenerys’ small council. I hear it whispered that the people love them ever so. And I'm sure Septa Roelle can pray every bit as well as Septon Bandir and I've no doubt she could preach too with a little practice."

"Yes, I believe she could," said Brienne dryly. "She does plenty of unofficial preaching as it is. Nobody has much of a chance to go wrong on Tarth with Roelle to oversee them."

"Brienne," said Alys in a burst of confidence, "I want to tell you something and ask you what you think about it. It has worried me terribly--on afternoons after we pray at the sept, that is, when I think specially about such matters. I do really want to be good; and when I'm with you or Lady Margaery or Grand Maester Sarella I want it more than ever and I want to do just what would please you and what you would approve of. But mostly when I'm with Septa Roelle I feel desperately wicked and as if I wanted to go and do the very thing she tells me I oughtn't to do. I feel irresistibly tempted to do it. Now, what do you think is the reason I feel like that? Do you think it's because I'm really bad and a degenerate?"

Brienne looked dubious for a moment. Then she laughed.

"If you are I guess I am too, Alys, for Roelle often has that very effect on me. I sometimes think she'd have more of an influence for good, as you say yourself, if she didn't keep nagging people to do right. There should have been a special passage in the Seven-Pointed Star against nagging. But there, I shouldn't say such things. Roelle is a good woman of the Faith and she means well and she never shirks her share of work."

"I'm very glad you feel the same," said Alys decidedly. "It's so encouraging. I shouldn’t worry so much over that after this. But I dare say there'll be other things to worry me. They keep coming up new all the time--things to perplex you, you know. You settle one question and there's another right after. There are so many things to be thought over and decided when you're beginning to grow up. It keeps me busy all the time thinking them over and deciding what is right. It's a serious thing to grow up, isn't it, Brienne? But when I have such good friends as you and Podrick and Lady Margaery and Grand Maester Sarella I ought to grow up successfully, and I'm sure it will be my own fault if I don't. I feel it's a great responsibility because I have only the one chance. If I don't grow up right I can't go back and begin over again. I've grown two inches this summer, Brienne. Maester Flint measured me the last time he checked my health. I'm so glad you made the seamstress make my new dresses longer. That dark-blue one is so pretty and it was sweet of you to put on the moon and sun of your house. Of course I know it wasn't really necessary, but the sigil is so important to me. I know I'll be able to study better because of mine. I shall have such a comfortable feeling deep down in my mind about that sigil, knowing you’ve claimed me."

"It's worth something to have that," admitted Brienne.

Grand Maester Sarella came back to King’s Landing from a meeting with the conclave and found all her pupils eager for work once more. Especially did the Queen's class gird up their loins for the fray, for at the end of the coming year, dimly shadowing their pathway already, loomed up that fateful thing Sarella had taken to referring to as "the Entrance," at the thought of which Merydeth and Alys felt their hearts sink into their very shoes. Suppose they did not pass! That thought was doomed to haunt Alys through the waking hours of that season, lazy afternoons inclusive, to the almost entire exclusion of moral and theological problems. When Alys had bad dreams she found herself staring miserably at a dim future where she did not earn a place at the Citadel afterall, and trudged back to the Secret Rose in shame to take up her mother’s former position.

Aside from her fears of failure, it was a jolly, busy, happy swift-flying season. Learning was as interesting, class rivalry as absorbing, as of yore. New worlds of thought, feeling, and ambition, fresh, fascinating fields of unexplored knowledge seemed to be opening out before Alys's eager eyes.

Much of all this was due to Grand Maester Sarella's tactful, careful, broadminded guidance. She led her class to think and explore and discover for themselves and encouraged straying from the old beaten paths to a degree that quite shocked the other old men who had studied in Oldtown, who viewed all innovations on established methods rather dubiously.

Apart from her studies Alys expanded socially, for Brienne, mindful of the maester’s dictum, no longer vetoed occasional outings. The Queen’s class flourished and gave several presentations for their parents; there were one or two parties almost verging on grown-up affairs; there were balls and feasts galore.

Betweentimes Alys grew, shooting up so rapidly that Brienne was astonished one day, when they were standing side by side, to find the girl was taller than her shoulder.

"Why, Alys, how you've grown!" she said, almost unbelievingly. A sigh followed on the words. Brienne felt a strange regret over Alys's inches. The child she had learned to love had vanished somehow and here was this tall, serious-eyed girl of fifteen, with the thoughtful brows and the proudly poised little head, in her place. Brienne loved the girl as much as she had loved the child, but she was conscious of a sorrowful sense of loss. And that night, when Alys had gone to dinner with some of her new friends at court, Brienne sat alone in the White Sword Tower and indulged in the weakness of a cry. Podrick, coming in with some scrolls she had ordered, caught her at it and gazed at her in such consternation that Brienne had to laugh through her tears. She must have been quite a sight, sitting at the White Book in full armor with puffy eyes and splotchy cheeks.

"I was thinking about Alys," she explained. "She's got to be such a young woman - and she'll probably be away from us at the Citadel next year. I'll miss her terribly, and I never expected that. And if the maesters don’t take her, I’m afraid a husband soon will."

Podrick smiled and said quietly, “I don’t think that will be a problem, Ser. Your foster daughter prefers the company of women and is determined to be a spinster if the maesters will not take her.”

“Oh.” Brienne mused a bit at that. “And how do you know so much, Podrick Payne?”

“You’d be surprised what a quiet man can learn, Ser, when the world only sees a stumbletongue.”

“Indeed,” agreed Brienne. “But I know plenty of women like that that married anyway for the convenience.”

“And just as many live on their own as Silent Sisters or septas or merchants. Grand Maester Sarella has shown her another way to live independently now that the Citadel accepts women. So Alys chooses to make her own way, Ser, much as you have. But she'll be able to come home often," comforted Podrick, to whom Alys was as yet and always would be the little, eager girl he had brought home from the docks on that evening four years before. "The Rose Road will be newly paved all the way to Oldtown by that time and between the fleet Asha Greyjoy commands and your ships that keep the Straits of Tarth free of raiders, keeping passage safe for travelers is simple these days."

"It won't be the same thing as having her here all the time," sighed Brienne gloomily, determined to enjoy her luxury of grief uncomforted. "But there--men can't understand these things. Perhaps I’ll seek out Margaery this evening."

There were other changes in Alys no less real than the physical change. For one thing, she became much quieter. Perhaps she thought all the more and dreamed as much as ever, but she certainly talked less. Brienne noticed and commented on this also.

"You don't chatter half as much as you used to, Alys, nor use half as many big words. What has come over you?"

Alys colored and laughed a little, as she dropped her book and looked dreamily out of the window, where big fat red buds were bursting out on the creeper in response to the lure of the summer sunshine.

"I don't know--I don't want to talk as much," she said, denting her chin thoughtfully with her forefinger. "It's nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one's heart, like treasures. I don't like to have them laughed at or wondered over. And somehow I don't want to use big words any more. It's almost a pity, isn't it, now that I'm really growing big enough to say them if I did want to. It's fun to be almost grown up in some ways, but it's not the kind of fun I expected, Brienne. There's so much to learn and do and think that there isn't time for big words. Besides, Grand Maester Sarella says the short ones are much stronger and better. She makes us write all our essays as simply as possible and invites Princess Shireen to read them. Did you know the princess learned to read before she was five? And she was teaching grown men to read by the time she was ten? I just think that is terribly admirable. Sometimes I think she is a harsher mistress about our compositions that Grand Maester Sarella. She says it would be dishonorable for the lords and ladies and their servants to be untaught in composition. It was hard at first. I was so used to crowding in all the fine big words I could think of--and I thought of any number of them. But I've got used to it now and I see it's so much better. Grand Maester Sarella sometimes has us write a story for training in composition, but she won't let us write anything but what might happen in our own lives, and she criticizes it very sharply and makes us criticize our own too. I never thought my compositions had so many faults until I began to look for them myself. I felt so ashamed I wanted to give up altogether, but Grand Maester Sarella said I could learn to write well if I only trained myself to be my own severest critic. And so I am trying to."

"You've only two more months before the Entrance," said Brienne. "Do you think you'll be able to get through?"

Alys shivered.

"I don't know. Sometimes I think I'll be all right--and then I get horribly afraid. We've studied hard and Grand Maester Sarella has drilled us thoroughly, but we might not get through for all that. We've each got a stumbling block. I wish it was all over, Brienne. It haunts me. Sometimes I wake up in the night and wonder what I'll do if I don't pass."

"Why, go to the Queen’s class next year and try again," said Brienne unconcernedly. “And you’ll always have a home with me.”

"Oh, I don't believe I'd have the heart for it. It would be such a disgrace to fail.” Alys sighed and, dragging her eyes from the witcheries of the summer world, the beckoning day of breeze and blue, and the green things upspringing in the garden, buried herself resolutely in her book. There would be other summers, but if she did not succeed in passing the Entrance, Alys felt convinced that she would never recover sufficiently to enjoy them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I outed Alys. I felt only subtext wasn't appropriate. And truly, if you read the original Anne of Green Gables, I always shipped Anne Shirley and Diana Barry.


	24. The Entrance to the Citadel

With the end of the court season came the close of their studying and the close of Grand Maester Sarella’s tutelage. Alys and Jasper walked away from the maester’s chambers that evening feeling very sober indeed. Red eyes and damp handkerchiefs bore convincing testimony to the fact that Grand Maester Sarella's farewell words must have been quite as touching as any of Queen Daenerys’ speeches during the war. Jasper looked back at the scroll room from the foot of the stairwell and sighed deeply.

"It does seem as if it was the end of everything, doesn't it?" he said dismally.

"You shouldn’t feel half as badly as I do," said Alys, hunting vainly for a dry spot on her handkerchief. "You're going to back to Bronzegate to be with your family, but I suppose I've left dear King’s Landing forever-- if I have good luck, that is and get into the Citadel."

"It won't be a bit the same. Podrick won't be there nor Brienne. I suppose I will even miss you,” Jasper added, giving Alys a weak punch to her shoulder. “I shall have to sit all alone in the hall at Bronzegate. They’re fair strangers now, after four years gone. Oh, we have had jolly times, haven't we, Alys? It's dreadful to think they're all over."

Two big tears rolled down by Alys’ nose. "If you would stop making me cry I could answer back," said Alys imploringly. "Just as soon as I put away my handkerchief I see you brimming up and that starts me off again. And don’t try to deny the wetness of your eyes, Jasper Buckler. Your tears are plain as day. Well. That’s that. As Septa Roelle says, `If you can't be cheerful, be as cheerful as you can.' After all, I dare say I'll be back next year. This is one of the times I KNOW I'm not going to pass. They're getting alarmingly frequent."

"Why, you came out ahead of the rest in the test exams Grand Maester Sarella gave."

"Yes, but those exams didn't make me nervous. When I think of the real thing you can't imagine what a horrid cold fluttery feeling comes round my heart. And then I saw a white raven outside the window as I wrote out my answers and Rickon says it's so unlucky. I am NOT superstitious and I know it can make no difference. But still I wish it wasn't a WHITE raven I’d seen."

"I do wish you’d come to visit at Bronzegate," said Jasper. "Wouldn't that be a perfectly fun time? But I suppose you'll have to stay in Oldtown until you make your chain. Maybe when old Flinty dies, you can be the new maester at Evenfall Hall and I can visit you. You'll write to me while you're in Oldtown, won't you? I know you’ll be writing to Lady Brienne. It won’t take a bit of work to scratch out a second letter."

"I'll write as soon as possible and tell you all how the first day goes," promised Alys.

"I'll be haunting the rookery," vowed Jasper.

Alys went to Oldtown the following week with Grand Maester Sarella and Merydeth and Jasper hiked up the many steps to the rookery to pester the maester’s assistants to see if any letters arrived for the Tarth household.

_"Dearest Brienne and Podrick (and Jasper I suppose)" [wrote Alys],_

_"Here it is my second night and I'm writing this in the library at the Citadel. Last night I was horribly lonesome all alone in my room and wished so much you were with me. I couldn't study because I'd promised Grand Maester Sarella not to, but it was as hard to keep from opening my history tome as it used to be to keep from reading a hero story before my lessons were learned._

_"This morning Grand Maester Sarella came for me and we went to the Conclave, calling for Merydeth and two other applicants on our way. Merydeth asked me to feel her hands and they were as cold as ice. She said I looked as if I hadn't slept a wink and she didn't believe I was strong enough to stand the grind of the maester’s course even if I did get through. There are times and seasons even yet when I don't feel that I've made any great headway in learning to like the rigors of lessons!_

_"When we reached the Conclave there were scores of men there from all over the Seven Kingdoms. Hardly any girls had come for the testing. The first person we saw was a Maester Samwell sitting on the steps and muttering away to himself. Sarella seemed to know him as a dear friend and asked him what on earth he was doing outside the Conclave’s chambers on the testing day when he already had his maester’s chain and he said he was repeating the line of Night’s Watch Commanders over and over to steady his nerves and for pity's sake not to interrupt him, because if he stopped for a moment he got flustered and forgot everything he ever knew, but the history of the black brothers kept all his facts firmly in their proper place!_

_"When we were assigned to our rooms Grand Maester Sarella had to leave us. Merydeth and I sat together and she was so composed that I envied her. I wondered if I looked as I felt and if they could hear my heart thumping clear across the room. Then a man came in and began distributing the wax tablets for the first examination. My hands grew cold then and my head fairly whirled around as I picked it up. Just one awful moment—Lady Brienne, I felt exactly as I did four years ago when I asked you if I might stay at Evenfall Hall--and then everything cleared up in my mind and my heart began beating again--I forgot to say that it had stopped altogether!--for I knew I could do something with THAT tablet anyhow._

_"At noon we went to the feast hall for dinner and then back again for history in the afternoon. The history was a pretty hard oral exam and I got dreadfully mixed up in the dates. Still, I think I did fairly well today, though not nearly so well as the bards that have come to Evenfall to recite the histories. But oh, Brienne, tomorrow the astronomy exam comes off and when I think of it it takes every bit of determination I possess to keep from opening my star charts. If I thought that Maester Sam’s roster of names would help me any I would recite it from now till tomorrow morning._

_"I went down to see the other novices this evening. On my way I met an acolyte wandering distractedly around. He said he knew he had failed in history and he was born to be a disappointment to his parents and he was going home on the morning tide; and it would be easier to be a carpenter than a maester, anyhow. I cheered him up and persuaded him to stay to the end because it would be unfair to the other novices if he didn't because they would lose heart to see him give up. Sometimes I have wished I was born a boy, but when I saw those scared boys in the novice’s hall I'm always glad I'm a girl because girls are braver than boys (sorry Jasper-but it’s true)._

_"Merydeth was in hysterics when I reached our cell; she had just discovered a fearful mistake she had made in her oral exam. When she recovered we went to the Thieve’s Market (which is really quite safe despite it’s name) and had meat pasties. How we wished you had been with us._

_"Oh, Brienne, if only the metallurgy test were over! But there, as Septa Roelle would say, the sun will go on rising and setting whether I fail or not. That is true but not especially comforting. I think I'd rather it didn't go on if I failed!_

_Yours devotedly, Alys"_

The metallurgy examination and all the others were over in due time and Alys arrived back at the Red Keep the following week, rather tired but with an air of chastened triumph about her. Brienne was over at the White Sword Tower when she arrived and they met as if they had been parted for years.

"It's good to see you back again, girl,” said Brienne after a tearful embrace. “It seems like an age since you went to Oldtown and how did you get along?"

"Pretty well, I think, in everything but the metallurgy. I don't know whether I passed in it or not and I have a creepy, crawly presentiment that I didn't. Oh, how good it is to be back! But can we go back to Tarth soon? Evenfall Hall is the dearest, loveliest spot in the world."

"Of course, of course. How did the other girl do? Merydeth is her name?"

"She says she knows she didn't pass, but I think she did pretty well. But we don't really know anything about it and won't until the the raven arrives. That won't be for a fortnight. Imagine living a fortnight in such suspense! I wish I could go to sleep and never wake up until it is over."

"Oh, you'll pass all right,” Brienne assured her. “You’re the most stubborn girl I know. Don't worry."

With this end in view Brienne had strained every nerve during the time Alys was away. So had Hyle Hunt. They had met and passed each other in the halls of the Red Keep a dozen times without any sign of recognition and every time Brienne had held her head a little higher and wished a little more earnestly that she had made friends with Hyle when he asked her even if solely for the sake of discussing Alys’ future with him. She knew that he was worried about his daughter’s prospects; she even knew that Hyle Hunt had pestered Podrick Payne and Jasper Buckler day and night waiting for the news from the Citadel and that Podrick had said there was no doubt in the world that Hyle was proud of how Alys had turned out.

Alys had another and nobler motive beyond assurances for her own future for wishing to do well. She wanted to be accepted into the Citadel for the sake of Podrick and Brienne-- especially Podrick. Podrick had declared to her his conviction that she "would beat the whole of the Seven Kingdoms and every novice in the Citadel.” That, Alys felt, was something it would be foolish to hope for even in her wildest dreams. But she did hope fervently that she would be among the best of the novices, so that she might see Podrick's kindly brown eyes gleam with pride in her achievement. That, she felt, would be a sweet reward indeed for all her hard work and patient grubbing among unimaginative alchemical potions and dusty histories.

At the end of the fortnight Alys took to "haunting" the rookery also, in the distracted company of Jasper, opening the Citadel missives with shaking hands and cold, sinkaway feelings as bad as any experienced during the Entrance week. Podrick and Hyle were not above doing this too, but Brienne of Tarth stayed resolutely away, determined to keep her mind on her duties as the Commander of the Queensguard.

"I haven't got the time to go there and look at every scroll that arrives," she told Podrick. "I'm just going to wait until somebody comes and tells me suddenly whether she’s been accepted or not."

When three weeks had gone by without the raven appearing Alys began to feel that she really couldn't stand the strain much longer. Her appetite failed and her interest in the doings at King’s Landing languished. Podrick, noting Alys's paleness and indifference and the lagging steps that bore her home from the rookery every afternoon, began seriously to wonder if he and Brienne hadn't pushed Alys too hard to pursue her dreams to become a maester.

But one evening the news came. Alys was sitting at her open window, for the time forgetful of the woes of examinations and the cares of the world, as she drank in the beauty of the summer dusk, sweet-scented with flower breaths from the garden below and sibilant rustling from the stir of poplars. The eastern sky above the weiroods was flushed faintly pink from the reflection of the west, and Alys was wondering dreamily if the spirit of color looked like that, when she saw Jasper come flying down the bridge that connected the maester’s tower with the keep proper, and up the corridor, with a fluttering scroll in his hand. Her father Hyle trotted nearly on his heels.

Alys sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained. The acolyte list was out! Her head whirled and her heart beat until it hurt her. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to her before Jasper came rushing along the hall and burst into the room without even knocking, so great was her excitement.

"Alys, you've passed," he cried, "passed the VERY FIRST--you and Merydeth both--you're ties--but your name is first. Oh, I'm so proud as if you were my very own sister!"

Jasper flung the paper on the table and Hyle pushed into the room behind him, utterly breathless and incapable of further speech. Alys lighted the lamp, oversetting the flint box and using up half a dozen strikes before her shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the scroll. Yes, she had passed--there was her name at the very top of a list of two hundred novices that would progress to be an acolyte! That moment was worth living for.

"You did just wonderful, Alys," puffed Hyle, recovering sufficiently from his sprint to sweep up his daughter and swing her around her chambers, for Alys, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a word. "Jasper brought the news to me not ten minutes ago. You've passed. Won't Grand Maester Sarella be delighted with you? I am near crazy with pride as it is, but I know I owe it all to the Lady Brienne and Squire Podrick and the grand maester.”

"I'm just dazzled inside," said Alys. "I want to say a hundred things, and I can't find words to say them in. I never dreamed of this--yes, I did too, just once! I let myself think ONCE, `What if I should come out and be a maester just like Sarella and Flint. Excuse me a minute, Father. I must run right out to the White Sword Tower to tell Lady Brienne."

“I’d like to come too, to give her my thanks,” Ser Hyle requested.

They hurried to the tower and climbed the spiral stair to the Lady Commander’s chambers. As luck would have it, they found Podrick Payne attending to Brienne as she met with some of the queensguard.

"Oh, Podrick," exclaimed Alys, "I've passed and I'm first--or one of the first! I'm not vain, but I'm thankful."

"Well now, I always said it," said Podrick, gazing at the scroll delightedly. "I knew you could beat them all easy."

"You've done pretty well, I must say, Alys," said Brienne, trying to hide her extreme pride in Alys from Hyle Hunt's watchful eye.

"Pretty well? She’s finished the best out of all the other novices. You're a credit to your foster mother, Alys, that's what, and we're all proud of you." Ser Hyle finished with a nod of thanks to Brienne.

That night Alys, who had wound up the delightful evening with a serious little talk with Grand Maester Sarella about her future, knelt sweetly by her open window in a great sheen of moonshine and murmured a prayer of gratitude and aspiration to the Crone requesting wisdom and guidance in the training to come. It came straight from her heart. There was in it thankfulness for the past and reverent petition for the future; and when she slept on her white pillow her dreams were as fair and bright and beautiful as maidenhood might desire.


	25. An Acolyte

Lady Brienne and her Tarth household made for home and the next three weeks were busy ones at Evenfall Hall as Alys was getting ready to go to the Citadel, and there was much sewing and packing and planning to be done, and many things to be talked over and arranged. The night before she was to leave, Brienne climbed to Alys’ chambers and gave her a storybook. It was the same one Ser Hyle had given to her so many years before.

“Alys girl,” Brienne began. “I know the maesters are scholars and scientists, but I want you to have this-so that you don’t lose the magic and wonder of your imagination.”

"Oh, Brienne, it's just lovely," said Alys. "Thank you so much. I don't believe you ought to be so kind to me--it's making it harder every day for me to go away. You’ve been so wonderful to me. You and Podrick both. I couldn’t have asked for a better foster mother truly. And even though becoming a maester means that I’m stripped of family name, well, I don’t suppose I ever had a family name, have I? Just a bastard’s name. But being with you, even for a little while, I felt I was part of Tarth and could pretend you were my true mother. And even though the Citadel won’t let me have a surname, I’ll always think of myself as Alys of Evenfall Hall – NEVER as Alys of the Secret Rose.”

Brienne dropped to the chair next to Alys’ bed and covered her mouth with one hand.

"Did my declaration make you cry, Brienne?" said Alys gaily stooping over Brienne's chair to drop a butterfly kiss on that lady's cheek. "Now, I call that a positive triumph. Behold, the Brienne the Brave laid low by little Alys Flowers."

"No, I wasn't crying over your words," said Brienne, who would have scorned to be betrayed into such weakness by any poetry stuff. "I just couldn't help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Alys. And I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your strange ways. You've grown up now and you're going away; and you look so tall and grown up and so--so--different altogether --as if you didn't belong on Tarth at all-- and I just got lonely thinking it all over."

"Brienne!" Alys sat down on Brienne's lap, wriggling to find a comfortable place on the armored greaves, took Brienne's freckled face between her hands, and looked gravely and tenderly into Brienne's blue eyes. "I'm not a bit changed-- not really. I'm only just pruned down and branched out. The real ME--back here--is just the same. It won't make a bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly; at heart I shall always be your little Alys, who will love you and Podrick and dear Evenfall Hall more and better every day of her life."

Alys laid her fresh young cheek against Brienne's scarred one, and reached out a hand to pat her shoulder. Brienne would have given much just then to have possessed Alys's power of putting her feelings into words; but nature and habit had willed it otherwise, and she could only put her arms close about her girl and hold her tenderly to her heart, wishing that she need never let her go.

The day finally came when Alys must go to the Citadel. She and Podrick rode to Lowtown one fine sunny morning, after a tearful parting with Daena and an untearful practical one-- on Brienne's side at least--with Brienne and boarded a ship. But when Alys had gone, Daena dried her tears and went back to the Barrens watchtower, where she contrived to bury herself in the tasks at hand; while Brienne plunged fiercely into unnecessary work and kept at it all day long with the bitterest kind of heartache--the ache that burns and gnaws and cannot wash itself away in ready tears. But that night, when Brienne went to bed, acutely and miserably conscious that the little castle room at the end of the hall was untenanted by any vivid young life and unstirred by any soft breathing, she buried her face in her pillow, and wept for her girl in a passion of sobs that appalled her when she grew calm enough to reflect how very right Ser Hyle had been that time at the inn when he had accused her of having a soft, mushy heart that ached for children.

Alys and the rest of the new Citadel novices reached Oldtown just in time to hurry off to their lessons. That first day passed pleasantly enough in a whirl of excitement, meeting all the new acolytes and novices, learning to know the maesters by sight and being assorted and organized into classes. Alys was conscious of a pang of loneliness when she found herself in a room with fifty other acolytes, not one of whom she knew, except the tall, black-haired girl across the room from King’s Landing.

"I wouldn't feel comfortable without that little sign of home," she thought. "Merydeth looks awfully determined. I suppose she's making up her mind, here and now, to win the first chain link for her collar. I wonder which of the girls here are going to be my friends. It's really an interesting speculation. Of course I promised Daena that no Oldtown girl, no matter how much I liked her, should ever be as dear to me as she is; but I've lots of second-best affections to bestow. I like the look of that girl with the brown skin and the crimson lips. She looks vivid and red-rosy; there's that pale, fair one gazing out of the window. She has lovely hair, and looks as if she knew a thing or two about dreams. I'd like to know them both--know them well--well enough to walk with my arm about their waists, and call them nicknames. But just now I don't know them and they don't know me, and probably don't want to know me particularly. Oh, it's lonesome!"

It was lonesomer still when Alys found herself alone in her hall bedroom that night at twilight. She was not to share a cell with the few other girls at the Citadel, who all had relatives in Oldtown to take pity on them. Lady Redwyne would have liked to host her with the Hightowers, vassals of House Tyrell, but the Hightower was so far from the Citadel, being located on Battle Island that it was out of the question; so Alys Flowers hunted up a disused chamber on a separate floor from the boys and men and looked upon it as a similar adventure to that when she first arrived at Evenfall Hall and discovered the cold and drafty chamber perched on the bluffs overlooking the Straits of Tarth.

All this might be quite true, and indeed, proved to be so, but it did not materially help Alys in the first agony of homesickness that seized upon her. She looked dismally about her narrow little room, with its dull whitewashed walls, its small iron bedstead and empty book- case; and a horrible choke came into her throat as she thought of her own bright room at Evenfall Hall, where she would have the pleasant consciousness of a great green still outdoors, of the healing herbs growing in the kitchen bailey, and moonlight falling on the godswood, of the bluffs below the keep and the waves tossing in the night wind against Widow’s Rock, of a vast starry sky, and the light from Daena's watchtower shining out across the barrens. Here there was nothing of this; Alys knew that outside of her window was a hard street, with a network of bridges and market stalls shutting out the sky, the tramp of alien feet, and a thousand lights gleaming on stranger faces. She knew that she was going to cry, and fought against it.

"I WON'T cry. It's silly--and weak--there's the third tear splashing down by my nose. There are more coming! I must think of something funny to stop them. But there's nothing funny except what is connected with Tarth, and that only makes things worse--four--five--I'm going home next year, but that seems a hundred years away. Oh, Podrick is nearly home by now--and Brienne is at the docks, looking down the pier for him--six--seven--eight-- oh, there's no use in counting them! They're coming in a flood presently. I can't cheer up--I don't WANT to cheer up. It's nicer to be miserable!"

The flood of tears would have come, no doubt, had not Merydeth appeared at that moment. In the joy of seeing a familiar face Alys forgot that there had never been much love lost between her and Merydeth, but just a firm rivalry. As a part of King’s Landing life even Merydeth was welcome.

"I'm so glad you came up." Alys said sincerely.

"You've been crying," remarked Merydeth, with aggravating pity. "I suppose you're homesick--some people have so little self-control in that respect. I've no intention of being homesick, I can tell you. Oldtown's too joyous after that pain in my ass father. I wonder how I ever existed there so long. You shouldn't cry, Alys; it isn't becoming, for your nose and eyes get red, and then you seem all blotchy. I'd a perfectly wonderful time in the Citadel today. Our smithing maester is simply a genius. His arms would give you kerwollowps of the heart and are perfectly delicious. Have you anything eatable around, Alys? I'm literally starving. Ah, I guessed likely your foster mother would load you up with lemon cakes. That's why I called round. Otherwise I'd have gone to the wharves to hear the mummers play with Hopfrog Mollander. I met him at the Quill and Tankard while you were away on Tarth, and he's a sport. He noticed you in the orrery during the astrology lesson, and asked me who the hazel-eyed girl was. I told him you were an orphan that the Maid of Tarth had adopted, and nobody knew very much about what you'd been before that."

Alys was wondering if, after all, solitude and tears were not more satisfactory than Merydeth's companionship when the aforementioned Mollander and a blond young man named Leo appeared, each with two links –black iron and lead--pinned proudly to their acolyte robes.

"Well," said Mollander with a sigh as he sat and began to massage his club foot. "I feel as if I'd lived many moons since the morning. I ought to be in my own cell studying for the yellow link--that horrid old archmaester gave us twenty lines of accounting to start in on tomorrow. But I simply couldn't settle down to study tonight. Alys, methinks I see the traces of tears. If you've been crying DO own up. It will restore my self-respect, for I, as the son of a knight, can do much to alleviate your sorrow. Lemoncake? You'll give me a teeny piece, won't you? And do you have any wine to wash it down with?"

Leo, perceiving some of Alys’ trinkets lying out on her washstand, wanted to know if Alys was familiar with the Tyrells when he spotted the Redwyne brooch Lady Olenna had gifted her.

Alys blushed and admitted she was acquainted with the Lady Margaery and the Dowager Lady Redwynne.

"Oh, that reminds me," said Merydeth, "The Citadel is to send off eightteen more maesters to the Gift. The word came today. Samwell Tarley told me—or rather Maester Samwell. He’s to be the maester at Castle Black, you know. It will be announced in the Conclave tomorrow."

Eightteen more maesters! Alys felt her heart beat more quickly, and the horizons of her ambition shifted and broadened as if by magic. Before Merydeth had told the news Alys's highest pinnacle of aspiration had been a maester’s provincial assignment at a small holdfast after a few years when post was vacated by another maester’s death. But now in one moment Alys saw herself winning a post at one of the great castles at the Wall and helping shape the new settlement, before the echo of Merydeth's words had died away. For Queen Daenerys Stormborn was granting lands and castles in the Gift to any number of raised lords across Westeros in recognition for their deeds during the great war with the Others, and each of those holdfasts would be in need of a maester.

Settlement in the Gift had been a point of contention since the wars had ended. For fifty leagues south of the Wall, the land lay wild and fallow, dotted with long abandoned holdfasts and tumbled fortifications like Queenscrown. Since the Battle of Castle Black, many free folk, at the invitation of Stannis Baratheon and Lord Commander Jon Snow, crossed south of the Wall to settle in the Gift and support the newly manned castles. Newly raised lords, from the ranks of knights that served in Stannis’ army, paid taxes to the Night’s Watch-mostly in the form of foodstuffs farmed from the Gift and supplies for the garrisons-so that the whole system seemed self-sustainable at times.

There had been much doubt, following the death of Stannis, whether the Queen would uphold the agreement between the rival claimant to the Iron Throne and the Night’s Watch commander. But the matter was settled when Dany arranged a marriage between Stannis’ daughter Shireen and her other nephew Aegon IV. She named Princess Shireen and Prince Aegon as her co-heirs despite rumors that the prince was not a true Targaryen and that seemed to settle most of the grumblings from the nobility as it united the rival factions with just one marriage.

Not only did Queen Daenerys support the deal to resettle the Gift, but she also sent refugees from Essos north to work as craftsmen and soldiers at the Wall. Not a few of the Unsullied left the ranks to live as freed men in the Gift, and countless war orphans followed in their wake to apprentice to them. The once abandoned castles guarding them from the Others beyond the wall were now bustling with haggling merchants, hardworking builders, war-weary soldiers, and experienced craftsmen-all without maesters.

No wonder that Alys went to bed that night with tingling cheeks!

"I'll win a maester posting if hard work can do it," she resolved. "Wouldn't Podrick be proud if I got to be a maester of the Night’s Watch? Maybe at Queensgate or perhaps at Woodswatch-by-the-Pool. That’s such a pretty name. One imagines it populated by Children of the Forest. Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them-- that's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me 25 chapters to reveal why Princess Shireen is still alive while Dany is on the throne, but better late than never. As part of my fluffy, everybody lives fic, I thought a marriage of rivals for the throne would be one way to end the war for the crown. Shireen is a Targaryen, albeit just a cousin of Dany's. So even if Aegon/Young Griff is an imposter, there would still be a Targaryen heir. For the sake of this AU, Dany will remain childless as a result of complications from her miscarriage, and the offspring of Shireen and Aegon with be the new line of queens and kings. Plus, I secretly like to imagine pretty boy Young Griff as making a good match for bookish Shireen. Both were raised to be heirs, and I think they'd make pretty good monarchs.


	26. A Year Spent Separated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is just fluffy filler with no reason to exist other than to show that another year has passed.

Brienne’s loneliness in Alys’ absence wore off, greatly helped in the wearing by her daily visits to the armory. As long as the open weather lasted the queensguard went out to train with the goldcloaks every night. Obara and several other whitecloaks not currently occupied guarding Dany were generally on hand to meet her as she climbed down the spiral stair of the White Sword Tower and they all walked over to the training grounds in a merry party. Brienne thought those evening sparring with her comrades in the crisp golden air, with the homelights of King’s Landing twinkling beyond, were the best and dearest hours in the whole week.

Hyle Hunt, having left his commission with his liege Storm lord, joined the goldcloaks under Ser Jaime’s command shortly after Alys’ departure for Oldtown. Now, he nearly always walked with Elia Sand and carried her spare lances for her on their way to the sparring grounds. Elia was a very handsome young lady, now fast approaching twenty-five; she wore her hair in a sleek black braid, twisted up beneath her helm when she fought. She had large, dark eyes, a warm complexion that reminded Brienne of the terra cotta tiles common on many roofs, and a lithe muscled figure. She laughed a great deal, was cheerful and good-tempered, and enjoyed the pleasant things of life frankly.

"But I shouldn't think she was the sort of woman Hyle would like," whispered Margaery to Brienne. Brienne did not think so either, but she would not have said so for all the gold in the royal coffers. She could not help thinking, too, that it would be very pleasant to have such a friend as Hyle to jest and chatter with and exchange ideas about horses and armor and ambitions. Hyle had ambitions, she knew, and Elia Sand did not seem the sort of person with whom such could be profitably discussed. He had always been clear with her that his goal was for a title, lands, and levies and the natural daughter of the Viper came with none of those things.

There was no silly sentiment in Brienne’s ideas concerning Hyle. Men were to her, aside from past fancies of Renly or Jaime, merely possible good comrades. If she and Hyle had been friends she would not have cared how many other friends he had nor with whom he walked. Not that Brienne could have put her feelings on the matter into just such clear definition. But she thought that if Hyle had ever escorted her back to the White Sword Tower from arms practice, over the cobbled pathways and along the arching bridges, they might have had many and merry and interesting conversations about the new world that was opening around them with Queen Dany’s reign and their hopes and ambitions therein. Hyle was a clever man prone to laughter, with his own thoughts about things and a determination to get the best out of life and put the best into it.

Elia Sand told her sister Obara that she didn't understand half the things Hyle Hunt said; he talked just like Commander Brienne did when she had a thoughtful fit on and for her part she didn't think it any fun to bother reminiscing about the old campaigns under Tarly’s command or the ill-fated quest to find Sansa Stark that he undertook with Brienne and her squire. In Elia’s opinion, Perros Blackmont had lots more sex appeal, but then he wasn't half as cheerful as Hyle and she really couldn't decide which man she liked best.

In King’s Landing Brienne gradually drew an exclusive circle of friends about her, thoughtful, imaginative, ambitious women like herself. She had a genius for friendship now that the wars were finished; comrades she had in plenty from the Small Council to the queensguard, but she held some women closer to her heart than others. With the “Little Rose” and Mistress of Coin, Margaery Tyrell, and the "Bear Cub," her fellow whitecloak Lyanna Mormont, she soon became intimate, finding the former to be full to the brim of well-intentioned mischief and keen political maneuvering, while the fierce, lanky Lyanna had a heartful of courage and determination, as solid and unyeilding as Brienne’s own.

After the annual coronation holiday to commemorate the Dragon Queen’s ascension to the Iron Throne the whitecloaks left off training with the goldcloaks and dispersed to their various assignments to protect Dany’s heirs and allies. By this time all the Westerosi had gravitated into their own ranks of loyalty toward the various factions that jostled for influence at the Red Keep but seemed at a loss on how to proceed when the heirs and the Small Council operated in concert on many of the issues of the Seven Kingdoms. Certain facts had become generally accepted. It was admitted that the politically expedient marriage of Shireen to Aegon had evolved into a love match much to the despair of many an available lord or lady; the Night’s Watch had gained notoriety as an honorable calling in the years following the War with the Others with a growing number of recruits each month; and the mounting legends surrounding the Maid of Tarth prompted women from all over the Seven Kingdoms to take up arms. Down in the noble gambling halls, the dice pits of Flea Bottom, and the various rowdy brothels, conversation changed to discuss the various merits of the warrior women of Westeros and it was not uncommon for fights to break out amongst the men when comparing their beauty or battle skills.

Chella of the Mountain clans was considered the fiercest woman in the queensguard, inciting passion in half the soldiers in the garrison; in the Small Council Sansa Stark carried off the award for most calculating, with a small but critical minority in favor of Margaery Tyrell. Asha Greyjoy was admitted by all competent judges to have the most effective naval strategies, and Brienne of Tarth--plain, plodding, brave Brienne--carried off the honors in the martial arts. Even Arya, confidentially known as the mistress of whispers, attained a certain preeminence as the young lady at court most compassionate towards the common folk. So it may be fairly stated that the queen’s inner circle held their own in the wider arena of public opinion.

Brienne worked hard and steadily during the regular arms competitions and the tourneys scattered across the kingdoms. Her rivalry with Hyle was as intense as it had ever been in the tourneys in the Stormlands, although it was not known in the court at large, but somehow the bitterness had gone out of it. Brienne no longer wished to win for the sake of defeating Hyle; rather, for the proud consciousness of a well-won victory over a worthy foeman. It would be worth while to win, but she no longer thought life would be insupportable if she did not. This was a large change from the battle rage she had felt once at Bitterbridge when she had smashed the other knights of that ill-conceived wager into the earth during the melee.

In spite of training, the guard found opportunities for pleasant times. Lady Brienne spent many of her spare hours at Highgarden during a royal visit, as Dany was well aware of the genial nature of her relationship with the Tyrells and Redwynes and she generally ate her meals with one or another woman from the Small Council in the evenings. Podrick Payne often found excuses to avoid such gatherings as he still found making small talk with the ladies of court rather daunting.

Then, almost before anybody realized it, a year had passed.

"It doesn't seem possible that the year is nearly over," said Brienne to Pod. "Last year it seemed so long to look forward to--a whole season of training and assignments without Alys’ company. And here we are, with the return to the island looming up next month. Pod, sometimes I feel as if those assignments at the queen’s side meant everything and that it is the fulfillment of my dreams, but when I look at the white sails swelling on Blackwater Bay and the gulls swirling overhead at the end of the pier they don't seem half so important as going back to Tarth."

Obara and Elia, who had dropped in to her study to discuss provisions for the light horse regiment, did not take this view of it. To them, guarding the queen and her family constantly was very important indeed--far more important than the tang of iodine in the air and the sight of the limestone bluffs below Evenfall Hall. But to Brienne, who held space in her heart for a hazel-eyed girl of sixteen, the sights and sounds of the sea reminded her that she had a home and a calling beyond that of commander of the queensguard. It was all Brienne could do not to immediately pack her footlocker and make for the docks, sailing off to the island to welcome her foster daughter home from her studies at the Citadel.

Obara and Elia both chattered at once, a habit the Sand sisters had developed long ago, and the talk drifted into a side eddy of armor enameling improvements. But Brienne, with her elbows on the sill of the arrow loop, her freckled cheek laid against the cool ashlars, and her eyes filled with visions, looked out unheedingly across city roof and spire to that glorious dome of sunset sky and wove her dreams of a returning ship with the Hightower sigil emblazoned on the sail carrying Alys home to Tarth. She shook the cobwebs from her mind, silently reprimanding herself for emulating Alys’ practice of daydreaming. But try as she might, Brienne couldn’t shake loose the image of a skinny and dirty child of eleven, brown hair sticking in all directions and a look of hope in her eyes. In four more weeks, they would be home again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	27. The Glory and the Dream

To celebrate the end of the court season at King’s Landing, Queen Daenerys held a series of hastiltudes to send off her vassals before they returned to their own holdfasts. In addition to those still staying at the Red Keep for administrative purposes, other knights and some of the northern cavalry also arrived to vie for the sizable purses for each game. Adding to the usual melee and jousting competitions held on the tourney grounds south of the city, the Hand of the Queen had organized a quintain and an archery competition hosted to the north of the city as well as a passage of arms to be held at the Dragon Gate. This let more merchant stalls and performance pavillions to be set up for the spectators. Thankfully, the renovations had been completed at the Dragon Pit as well, turning it into a grand arena and allowing for the single combat competitions in the various weapons classes. Altogether, Lady Sansa had organzied a full schedule with a variety of events to entertain the masses that flocked to the capital.

On the morning when the final results of all the competitions were to be announced to the grandstands, Lady Brienne and Lyanna Mormont walked down the street together. Lyanna was smiling and happy. This year, the combatants had participated in round robin tournaments, meaning each fighter had a match against every other fighter. This way, the judges had a better idea of how the various rivals matched up against one another. A downside to this method, however, was that the winners of each competion were determined by an accumulation of points rather than through elimination, making it more difficult for the participants and spectators to keep track of which opponents were in the lead. It did make the wagering more interesting, though. After a full week of matches, with a few men and women dropping out due to injuries, the single combat competitions were finally over and Lyanna was comfortably sure she had made a high rank at least as she had beaten the majority of the war axe competitors. Further considerations troubled Lyanna not at all; she had not entered in the other arms competitions and consequently was not affected with the unrest attendant thereon. Brienne was quiet, her freckles standing in sharp contrast to her fair skin; in ten more minutes she would know who had won at the lists and who the passage of arms. Beyond those ten minutes there did not seem, just then, to be anything worth being called Time.

"Of course you'll win one of them anyhow," said Lyanna, who couldn't understand how the judges could be so unfair as to order it otherwise.

"I have not hope of the winning at the lists," said Brienne. "Everybody says Garlan Tyrell or Elia Sand will win it. And I'm not going to march up to that tree of shields and look at it in front of everybody. I haven't the moral courage. My face fairly burns with the shame of not winning one of the games. Could you imagine if the Commander of the Queensguard failed to place? I'm going straight to the pavilion. You must read the announcements for the long sword, short sword, and passage of arms and then come and tell me, Lyanna. And I implore you in the name of our old friendship to do it as quickly as possible. If I have failed just say so, without trying to break it gently; and whatever you do DON'T sympathize with me. Promise me this, Lyanna."

Lyanna promised solemnly; but, as it happened, there was no necessity for such a promise. When they went up the entrance steps of the Dragon Pit they found the hall full of knights who were carrying Hyle Hunt around on their shoulders and yelling at the tops of their voices, "Hurrah for Ser Hyle, winner of the passage of arms!"

For a moment Brienne felt one sickening pang of defeat and disappointment. So she had failed and Hyle had won! Well, Podrick would be sorry--he had been so sure she would win.

And then!

Somebody called out:

"Three cheers for Lady Commander Brienne, winner of the short sword competition!"

"Oh, Brienne," gasped Lyanna, as they raced through the entrance and into the arena amid hearty cheers. "Oh, Commander Brienne I'm so proud! Isn't it splendid?"

And then the rest of the queensguard were around them and Brienne was the center of a laughing, congratulating group. Her shoulders were thumped and her hands shaken vigorously. She was pushed and pulled and hugged and among it all she managed to whisper to Lyanna: "Won't Alys be proud! I must send off a raven right away to the Citadel."

The award ceremony was the next important happening. The parade was held in the arena of the Dragon Pit. Roses draped the withers of the horses in the column and vendors tossed gaily wrapped packages of sweets and copper stars into the stands for the spectators to their hearyy cheers. Lord Garlan crowned his wife Leonette Fossaway the Queen of Love and Beauty with a garland of Highgarden roses the color of sunset.

Podrick was there in the stands, with eyes and ears for only one fighter on the platform--a tall woman in chromium steel plate, with ruddy cheeks and bright blue eyes, who trounced the most swordsmen in the tourney and was pointed out and whispered about as the incomparable Maid of Tarth. The normally quiet young man astounded his fellows by clapping and shouting louder than the rest when her name was announced.

"Reckon you're proud of yourself, Ser?" whispered Podrick, speaking for the first time since he had entered the Dragon Pit, when Brienne had finished her promenade in front of the royal family and taken up her seat in the stands next to her squire.

"It's not vanity if it’s deserved," retorted Brienne. "You do like to rub things in, Podrick Payne."

Lady Olenna, who was sitting behind them with Margaery Tyrell, leaned forward and poked Brienne in the back with her cane. "Where’s your girl Alys?” she asked. “I think she’d rather like to be here to see you take the honors along with her father. And she’s a fair bit more exciting to talk to than you lot.”

“Her ship should embark from Oldtown sometime this week. The acolytes were kept longer at the Citadel this season due to storms in the south. Pod and I will see her when we return to Tarth.”

In fact, it was the very next week that Alys sailed home to Tarth on one of those swanships from the Summer Sea. It made port at Storm’s End for a day and a half before continuing on to the dock at Lowtown. She had not been home for ten months and she felt that she could not wait another day. Podrick Payne waited at the Broken Mast for her return and then they both rode up the winding road together just as they had five years ago, though Alys was much quieter than she had been when she was eleven. The apple blossoms were out and the world was fresh and young. Daena was at Evenfall Hall to meet her with a kiss and a long embrace. In her own familiar room, where Brienne had set a grey and gnarled knot of driftwood on the washstand, Alys looked about her and drew a long breath of happiness.

"Oh, Daena, it's so good to be back again. It's so good to see those whitecaps breaking on the bluffs below. Isn't the breath of the seaweed delicious? And that driftwood--why, it's a song and a hope and a prayer all in one. And it's GOOD to see you again, Daena!"

"I thought you liked that Dornish girl Leyla better than me," said Daena reproachfully. "Merydeth sent a raven and told me you did. Merydeth said you were INFATUATED with her and that she was in four of your classes."

Alys laughed and pelted Daena with the faded Highgarden roses of her bouquet. "Leyla is the dearest girl in the world except one and you are that one, Daena," she said. "I love you more than ever--and I've so many things to tell you. But just now I feel as if it were joy enough to sit here and look at you. I'm tired, I think--tired of being studious and ambitious. I mean to spend at least two hours tomorrow lying out in the bailey, thinking of absolutely nothing."

"You've done splendidly, Alys. I suppose you won't be coming back again to Tarth now that you've begun earning the links to your maester’s chain?" Daena asked gloomily.

"Well, I'm going to back to the Citadel in three months.  I'll write to you just the same. Doesn't it seem wonderful though? I'll have a brand new stock of ambition laid in by that time after three glorious, golden months of vacation. Merydeth says that she wants to teach at the Citadel once she finishes the rest of her links. Isn't it splendid to think we all got through the qualifications from novice to acolytes?"

"Do you really want to be a maester in the Gift?” ased Daena. "You know your father left the Stormlands and joined the city watch at King’s Landing to be closer to you. As a hedge knight, he can't afford to move north next year, unless a lord of the North takes him on. My mother said she’d take him as a sword sword at the watchtower if you were to come back to Tarth."

Alys felt a queer little sensation of dismayed surprise. She had not known this; she had expected that she would not live near Lady Brienne or her father Hyle Hunt again after achieving her maester’s rank. Alys never imagined her father would follow her across Westeros to be near her posting. Now that she thought of it, what would she do without their support and friendship? Would not it be better to seek out a posting in the Crownlands to be close to them both?

Alys had her good day in the companionship of the outdoor world. She never forgot that day; it was so bright and golden and fair, so free from shadow and so lavish of blossom. Alys spent some of its rich hours in the godswood; she went to the barrens and Lowtown and followed the little spring past the bailey wall and through the misty vales as it wound its way down to the Straits; she called at the island garrison and had a sparring session with Arms Mistress Thistle like old times; and finally in the evening she went with Podrick for a walk with their horses, under the purply velvet night sky bright and freckled with stars. Podrick walked his gelding slowly with a bent head; Alys, tall and erect, suited her springing step to his.

"You've been working too hard lately, Podrick," she said reproachfully. "Why won't you take things easier?"

"Well now, I can't seem to," said Podrick slowly after a few moments of silence, as he opened the stable door to lead the horses inside to their stalls. "It's only that I'm getting impatient, Alys, and keep forgetting it. I’ve been a squire now for a dozen years-I started before I was ten-and I’m no closer to being landed and affording the equippage to be a knight. And now that Jasper has gone back to Bronzegate, the duties to help Ser-my Lady-Brienne fall squarely on my shoulders again. She’s so busy as the Commander of the Queensguard that she doesn’t have much time to minister to her duties on Tarth."

"If I had been the pageboy you sent for all those years ago," said Alys wistfully, "I'd be able to help you so much now and spare you in a hundred ways. I could find it in my heart to wish I had been, just for that."

"Well now, I'd rather have you than a dozen boys, Alys," said Podrick patting her hand. "Just mind you that-- rather than a dozen boys. Well now, I guess it wasn't a boy that saved those sailors in that shipwreck, was it? It wasn’t a boy that impressed the Grand Maester and was sent to train at the Citadel, was it? It was a girl--my girl--my girl that I'm proud of. I want more than anything for you to follow your dream to be a maester and never-you-mind about helping me. I’ll just send for another pageboy to train up for Ser Brienne-I mean my lady."

He smiled his shy smile at her as he went into the yard. Alys took the memory of it with her when she went to her room that night and sat for a long while looking down her garderrobe at the waves below, thinking of the past and dreaming of the future. The high bluffs were mistily white in the moonshine; the gulls were singing in the straits beyond. Alys always remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty and calm of that night. It was the last night before sorrow touched her life; and no life is ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has been laid upon it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	28. The Stranger

"Podrick--Podrick--what is the matter? Podrick, are you sick?" It was Brienne who spoke, alarm in every jerky word. Alys came through the hall, her hands full of purple lavender,--it was long before Alys could love the sight or odor of lavender,--in time to hear her and to see Podrick standing in the doorway that led from the maester’s tower, a folded paper in his hand, and his face strangely drawn and gray. Alys dropped her flowers and sprang across the hall to him at the same moment as Brienne. They were both too late; before they could reach him Podrick had fallen across the threshold.

"He's fainted," gasped Brienne. "Alys, run for Maester Flint-- quick, quick! He's at the rookery."

Cook Sara, who had just walked in from the kitchen garden, started at once for the herbalist, calling at the sept on her way to send Septa Roelle over. Septon Bandir, who was there on an errand, came too. They found Alys and Brienne distractedly trying to restore Podrick to consciousness.

Septa Roelle pushed them gently aside, tried his pulse, and then laid her ear over his heart. She looked at their anxious faces sorrowfully and the tears came into her eyes.

"Oh, Brienne," she said gravely. "I don't think--we can do anything for him."

"Septa Roelle, you don't think--you can't think Podrick is-- is--" Alys could not say the dreadful word; she turned sick and pallid.

"Child, yes, I'm afraid of it. Look at his face. When you've seen that look as often as I have you'll know what it means."

Alys looked at the still face and there beheld the seal of the Stranger.

But when the maester came finally from his tower he said that Roelle had no business in a sick room and that Podrick was merely unconscious due to shock. The secret of the shock was discovered to be in the paper Podrick had held and which Flint had brought from the messenger ravens that morning. It contained an account of the death of Ser Ilyn Payne.

The news spread quickly through Tarth, and all day friends and neighbors thronged Evenfall Hall and came and went on errands of kindness for the dead and living. For the first time shy, quiet Podrick Payne was a person of central importance; the gnarled hand of the Stranger had fallen on his house and set him apart as one crowned the new lord.

When the calm night came softly down over the island, all was hushed and tranquil. In the small sept Podrick Payne knelt in his house colors. The newly raised lord wore purple leggings and a white gambon with gold coins displayed over white and purple checks on his tabard, the shield bordered in gold. The white wool was the same shade as the limestone cliffs that abounded around Tarth and showed creases from their long storage as Pod had always preferred to wear Lady Brienne’s house colors while in her service. There were flowers about him--sweet old-fashioned herbal flowers which the scullery maid had planted in the kitchen bailey and for which Podrick had always had a secret, wordless love. Alys had gathered them and brought them to him to present at the altars of the Seven, her anguished, tearless eyes burning in her white face. It was the last thing she could do for him before he left for the Westerlands to take stock of his holdfast. Septon Bandir and Septa Roelle stayed with Lord Podrick that night in the sept to help keep the vigil.

Daena, going to Evenfall Hall, where Alys was standing at her window, said gently,"Alys dear, would you like to have me stay with you tonight?"

"Thank you, Daena." Alys looked earnestly into her lover’s face. "I think you won't misunderstand me when I say I want to be alone with Lady Brienne and Lord Podrick tonight. I can't realize it. Half the time it seems to me that Podrick can't be leaving; and the other half it seems as if he must have left a long time ago and I've had this horrible dull ache ever since."

Daena did not quite understand Alys’ tearless agony. But she went away kindly, leaving Alys alone to keep her first vigil with sorrow.

Alys hoped that the tears would come in solitude. It seemed to her a terrible thing that she could not shed a tear for Podrick, whom she had loved so much and who had been so kind to her, Podrick who had walked with her last evening at sunset and kneeling in quiet contemplation before the driftwood statues of the Faith with that awful peace on his brow. But no tears came at first, even when she knelt by her window in the darkness and prayed to the Crone for guidance, looking up to the stars beyond the straits--no tears, only the same horrible dull ache of misery that kept on aching until she fell asleep, worn out with the day's pain and excitement.

In the night she awakened, with the stillness and the darkness about her, and the recollection of the day came over her like a wave of sorrow. She could see Podrick's face smiling at her as he had smiled when they parted at the gate that last evening--she could hear his voice saying, "My girl--my girl that I'm proud of." Then the tears came and Alys wept her heart out. Brienne heard her and crept in to comfort her.

"There--there--don't cry so, my girl. It can't make him stay. It--it--isn't right to cry so. I knew that today would come eventually, but I couldn't help it then. He'd always been such a good, kind brother to me--but I can’t keep him here out of selfish greed. And it’s not as if the Stranger took him from us. He’s just going to the Westerlands to see to his new holdfast and meet with his vassals."

"Oh, just let me cry, Brienne," sobbed Alys. "The tears don't hurt me like that ache did. Stay here for a little while with me and keep your arm round me. I couldn't have Daena stay, she's good and kind and sweet--but it's not her sorrow--she's outside of it and she couldn't come close enough to my heart to help me. It's our sorrow-- yours and mine. I know I’ve been away from you both, and I planned to make my own place at another holdfast-but it was ever so much a comfort knowing Pod was by your side to support you and Tarth. When I think of Evenfall Hall-whenever I think of home-in my heart it was always the two of you standing side by side. Now that he’ll be gone and a lord in his own right, my sense of home just feels broken. Oh, Brienne, what will we do without him?"

"We've got each other, Alys. I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here--if you'd never come. Oh, Alys, I know I've been kind of strict and harsh with you maybe-- but you mustn't think I didn't love you as well as Podrick did, for all that. I want to tell you now when I can. It's never been easy for me to say things out of my heart, but at times like this it's easier. I love you as dear as if you were my own flesh and blood and you've been my joy and comfort ever since you came to Evenfall Hall."

Two days afterwards they sent Podrick Payne under the portcullis and away from the keep he had managed and the garrison of soldiers he had loved and the island he had roamed; and then Tarth settled back to its usual placidity and even at Evenfall Hall affairs slipped into their old groove and work was done and duties fulfilled with regularity as before, although always with the aching sense of "loss in all familiar things." Alys, feeling a grief unlike that of when her mother died, thought it almost sad that it could be so--that they COULD go on in the old way without Podrick. She felt something like shame and remorse when she discovered that the sunrises over the Narrow Sea and the pale pink buds opening in the garden gave her the old inrush of gladness when she saw them--that Daena's visits were pleasant to her and that Daena's merry words and ways moved her to laughter and smiles--that, in brief, the beautiful world of blossom and love and friendship had lost none of its power to please her fancy and thrill her heart, that life still called to her with many insistent voices.

"It seems like disloyalty to Podrick, somehow, to find pleasure in these things now that he has gone," she said wistfully to Septa Roelle one evening when they were together in the sept. "I miss him so much--all the time-- and yet the world and life seem very beautiful and interesting to me for all. Today Daena said something funny and I found myself laughing. I thought when it happened I could never laugh again. And it somehow seems as if I oughtn't to."

"When Lord Podrick was here he liked to hear you laugh and he liked to know that you found pleasure in the pleasant things around you," said Septa Roelle gently. "He is just away now in the west; and he likes to know it just the same. You can send him a raven and tell him all the doings on the island to gladden his heart. I am sure we should not shut our hearts against the healing influences that nature offers us. But I can understand your feeling. I think we all experience the same thing. We resent the thought that anything can please us when someone we love is no longer here to share the pleasure with us, and we almost feel as if we were unfaithful to our sorrow when we find our interest in life returning to us."

"I was down to the Broken Mast with Perry and Daena and some of the other sworn swords to toast Lord Podrick's health this afternoon," said Alys dreamily. "I downed a pint of ale, so please don’t tell Lady Brienne. But Podrick always liked the ales from the Reach the best--they were so sweet like the crisp Fossaway apples in their orchards. It made me feel glad that I could drink it in his honor--as if I were doing something that must please him in drinking it there to be near him. I hope he has ale like that in the Westerlands, though I heard there’s no love lost between the Tyrells and Lord Lannister so perhaps the caravans don’t go there. I must go home now. Brienne is all alone and she gets lonely at twilight since she no longer shares her study of an evening."

"She will be lonelier still, I fear, when you go away again to the Citadel," said Septa Roelle.

Alys did not reply; she said good night and went slowly back to Evenfall Hall. Brienne was sitting on the front door-steps and Alys sat down beside her. The steel-banded oak door was open behind them, held back by a big pink conch shell with hints of sea sunsets in its smooth inner convolutions. Alys gathered some sprays of pale-blue harebells and put them in her foster mother’s hair. She liked the delicious hint of fragrance, as some aerial benediction, above her every time she moved and they seemed to bring out the blue depths of Lady Brienne’s eyes.

As the western sky darkened to purple, Brienne finally told Alys the story of how she had first met Lord Podrick, the anxious, stuttering boy whose loyalty and bravery sent him on a quest through a war torn land filled with bandits and murderous soldiers. She told Alys how he’d killed a traitorous kingsguard in the Battle of the Blackwater and stopped a wight from running her through with a frog spear during a tussle with the Others in some midnight skirmish. The two women spoke softly of their memories of Podrick’s steadfastness and bravery in battle, as well as his thoughtfulness toward both women.

“What do you think he will do now?” Alys asked.

“I think he’ll send for a wife. He’ll need an heir to secure the seat of House Payne, and if I’m not mistaken, he asked Maester Flint to send a raven before he set sail,” Brienne answered.

“A wife?!” exclaimed Alys. “I’ve never seen Lord Podrick look at any women on Tarth or even in King’s Landing. I thought he had no interest in any romance, to be honest.”

Lady Brienne grinned conspiratorially at her foster daughter. “He fell in love almost ten years ago, when he was barely more than a boy. When we were captured in the Riverlands, there was a girl there that worked at the inn taking care of the war orphans and she helped tend his wounds after the hanging. Willow Heddle was her name. Your father said once that she’d make a good wife one day, and I think our Pod took that to heart. They’ve been exchanging letters ever since we escaped the Brotherhood without Banners, and I’m certain she’ll be the new lady of House Payne before the next turn of the moon. He’s never even looked at another woman again, that’s for certain.”

“A wife!” Alys laughed and shook her head in astonishment. She thought she’d learned more of Podrick’s secrets than even Brienne, but the quiet man still knew how to surprise her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Matthew Cuthbert dies, but I just couldn't do that to Pod. Please forgive me. Also, I wanted to remind you that I'm using the ages from the books and not the TV show. Pod and Willow Heddle are approximately the same age, around 11, at the time that Brienne's posse is captured at the Crossroads Inn. This makes Pod just 21 at the time he is raised to the lordship of House Payne.
> 
> In case you miss it, I updated the final chapter tonight. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	29. The Bend in the Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This work is now complete!

Brienne went to Kingslanding the next week and returned to her duties as commander of the queensguard. Alys had gone with her and spent her next days with Grand Maester Sarella and Princess Shireen going over the records from the War of Five Kings and came back to find Brienne in the White Sword Tower, sitting by the table with her head leaning on her hand. Something in her dejected attitude struck a chill to Alys’ heart. She had never seen Brienne sit limply inert like that.

"Are you very tired, Brienne?"

"Yes--no--I don't know," said Brienne wearily, looking up. "I suppose I am tired but I haven't thought about it. It's not that."

"Did you see Queen’s Hand? What did she say?" asked Alys anxiously.

"Yes, I saw Lady Sansa. She examined my accounts. She says that without Podrick administering to Evenfall Hall and the vassal houses, if I give up all stewardship entirely and any kind of work that interferes with my duties for the queen and appoint an heir, she thinks she can find an appropriate seneschal in the mean time. But if I don't she says I'll certainly be stripped of my command in six months or she’ll need to appoint a new lord of Tarth. Forfeit my position in the guard or lose my house! Alys, just think of it!"

For a minute Alys, after her first quick exclamation of dismay, was silent. It seemed to her that she could NOT speak. Then she said bravely, but with a catch in her voice: "Brienne, DON'T think of it. You know she has given you hope. If you are careful you won't lose Evenfall; and if you get to pick a seneschal yourself it will be a great thing. Have you truly given up hope of having a husband and heir?"

"I don't call it much hope," said Brienne bitterly. "What am I to live for if I can't take care of my people AND serve the throne? I might as well be blind--or dead. And as for crying, I can't help that when I get lonesome. But there, it's no good talking about it. If you'll get me a cup of tea I'll be thankful. I'm about done out. Don't say anything about this to any one for awhile yet, anyway. I can't bear that the vultures in King’s Landing should come here to circle and pick over the bones of Tarth and vie for the seat of my house."

When Brienne had eaten her lunch Alys persuaded her to leave off pouring over the White Book and go to bed. Then Alys went herself to the east wing reserved for families of the council and sat down by her window in the darkness alone with her tears and her heaviness of heart. How sadly things had changed since the night after coming home from the Citadel! Then she had been full of hope and joy and the future had looked rosy with promise. Alys felt as if she had lived years since then, but before she went to bed she said a prayer to the Crone for guidance and there was a smile on her lips and peace in her heart. She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend--as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.

One afternoon a few days later Brienne came slowly in from the courtyard where she had been talking to a caller-- a man whom Alys knew by sight as Lord Varys. Alys wondered what he could have been saying to bring that look to Brienne's face.

"What did Lord Varys want, Brienne?"

Brienne sat down by the weapons’ stand and looked at Alys. There were tears in her eyes in defiance of her usual stoic nature and her voice broke as she said: "He heard that I was going to abdicate my title at Evenfall Hall and he wants to buy it for some lord or other from Essos."

"Buy it! Buy Evenfall Hall?" Alys wondered if she had heard aright. "Oh, Brienne, you don't mean to give up Tarth!"

"Alys, I don't know what else is to be done. I've thought it all over. If I were still young or even passably pretty I could still marry and get an heir or I could manage with a good hired man, but I just don’t know who to entrust with the day to day business of the keep and the island without Podrick. But as it is I can't but I don’t want to lose my position as commander altogether; and anyway I'll not be fit to run things. Oh, I never thought I'd live to see the day when I'd have to leave my home. But things would only get behind worse and worse all the time, till nobody would want to live on the island. Every cent of our money went into the fleet after the invasion of the Golden Company and rebuilding after the wars. I'm thankful you're provided for with that maester’s training, Alys. I'm sorry you won't have a home to come to in your vacations, that's all, but I suppose you'll manage somehow."

Brienne broke down and wept bitterly.

"You mustn't give up Evenfall Hall," said Alys resolutely.

"Oh, Alys, I wish I didn't have to. But you can see for yourself. I can't stay there alone. I'd go crazy with trouble and loneliness. And my heart would give out if I left the queensguard--I know it would."

"You won't have to stay there alone, Brienne. I'll be with you. I'm not going to go back to Oldtown."

"Not going to Oldtown!" Brienne lifted her scarred and tear-stained face from her hands and looked at Alys. "What do you mean by that?"

"Just what I said. I'm not going to finish the training at the Citadel. I decided so the night after we returned to King’s Landing. You surely don't think I could leave you alone in your trouble, Brienne, after all you've done for me. I've been thinking and planning. Let me tell you my plans. Dalla Barrens wants to expand the number of sword shields up at the watchtower next year and a number of the Unsullied expressed an interest of joining our bow regiments. So you won't have any bother over defense on the island. And I'm going to act as your castellan. I've arranged for it with Lady Sansa--but I can continue to study my maesters’ subjects—Maester Flint can continue my training, Sarella told me so last night at supper. Of course that won't be quite as nice or convenient as if I had finished training at the Citadel. But I can study at Evenfall and correspond via ravens with the other maesters for some of the other subjects. Oh, I have it all planned out, Brienne. And I'll take real good care of Tarth and keep you updated while you’re serving the queen. So you won’t have to choose betweent the queensguard and your home until you have an heir. And you’ll be able to come home a couple of times a year like always and we’ll be happy here together, you and I."

Brienne had listened like a woman in a dream. "Oh, Alys, I can't let you sacrifice your future for me. It would be terrible."

"Nonsense!" Alys laughed merrily. "There is no sacrifice. Nothing could be worse than giving up Evenfall Hall--nothing could hurt me more. We must keep the dear old place. My mind is quite made up, Brienne. I'm NOT going to Oldtown; and I AM going to stay on Tarth and take care of the keep and its staff. Don't you worry about me a bit."

"But your ambitions--and--"

"I'm just as ambitious as ever. Only, I've changed the object of my ambitions. I'm going to be a good castellan-- and I'm going to save your title. Besides, I mean to study at home there and take a little correspondence course all by myself. Oh, I've dozens of plans, Brienne. I've been thinking them out for a week. I shall give life there my best, and I believe it will give its best to me in return. When I left the Citadel my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Brienne. I wonder how the road beyond it goes--what there is of green glory and soft, checkered light and shadows--what new landscapes--what new beauties--what curves and hills and valleys further on."

"I don't feel as if I ought to let you give it up," said Brienne, referring to the maester’s training.

"But you can't prevent me. I'm sixteen and a half, `obstinate as a mule,' as Septa Roelle once told me," laughed Alys. "Oh, Brienne, don't you go pitying me. I don't like to be pitied, and there is no need for it. I'm heart glad over the very thought of staying at dear Evenfall Hall. Nobody could love it as you and I do--so we must keep it."

"Alys Flowers!" said Brienne, yielding. "I feel as if you'd given me new life. I guess I ought to stick out and make you go to the Citadel--but I know I can't, so I won’t to try. I'll make it up to you though, Alys."

When it became noised abroad in King’s Landing that Alys Flowers had given up the idea of going back to the Citadel and intended to stay on the island and act as Lady Brienne’s castellan there was a good deal of discussion over it. Most of the good folks, believing Brienne’s days of getting an heir, thought Alys was foolish. Lady Margaery did not. She told Alys so in approving words that brought tears of pleasure to the girl's eyes. Neither did good Maester Samwell, traveling from Oldtown on his way to the Wall. He came up to Lady Brienne’s study at the top of the White Sword Tower one evening and found Alys and Brienne sitting at the opening of the arrow loop in the warm, scented summer dusk. They liked to sit there when the twilight came down and the ravens flew about in the bailey and the odor of apple blossoms filled the dewy air.

Maester Samwell deposited his substantial person upon the stone bench by the door, behind which hung a tapestry with the queensguard sigil bordered with red and black fringe, with a long breath of mingled weariness and relief. "I declare I'm getting glad to sit down. I've been on my feet all day, and three hundred pounds is a good bit for two feet to carry round. It's a great blessing not to be fat, Brienne. I hope you appreciate it. Well, Alys, I hear you've given up your notion of going back to the Citadel. I was real surprised to hear it. You've got as much potential as any acolyte I’ve met. I don't believe in wasting that, but I understand your motivations to help Lady Brienne out of loyalty."

"But I'm going to study for my maester’s links all the same, Maester Samwell," said Alys laughing. "I'm going to study under Maester Flint at Evenfall Hall, and study everything that I would have at Oldtown."

Maester Samwell lifted his hands in mock horror. "Alys Flowers, you'll kill yourself."

"Not a bit of it. I shall thrive on it. Oh, I'm not going to overdo things. But I'll have lots of spare time in the long summer evenings, and I've no vocation for fancy work. I'm going to devote myself entirely to the people on Tarth as they welcomed me as kin when I was a lowborn bastard, you know."

"I don't agree with that. You’re the daughter of a knight, not some lowborn bastard. I guess I’m going to have to help teach you on Tarth and help you manage the holdfast. It’s the least I can do to fulfill the life debt I owe your father."

"Maester Samwell!" cried Alys, springing to her feet in her surprise.

"What do you mean you owe Hyle Hunt a life debt?" asked Brienne.

"My father thought to teach me to swim by throwing me in the fish pond beneath Horn Hill. I almost drowned. But as soon as Ser Hyle heard my flailings, he waded in, grabbed me from the bottom, and dragged me ashore, pounding my back until I coughed up the water from my lungs. I think perhaps my father had hopes that I WOULD drown that day. Ser Hyle is one of the few true knights I’ve met-and I’ve met plenty in the days since. Did you know that when Renly called his banners, there was a lady in the camp that Ser Hyle wanted to court? Several other knights conspired to harrass the lady and even wagered on bedding her. It came to blows and my father demoted him from his position as captain and when the army settled at Maidenpool, my father set him as a lowly sentry on the town gate. My brother Dickon told me all about it. My father even barred him from the tournament at Bitterbridge. Later on, I heard he tried to convince my father to send an escort for a lady and her page in the Riverlands since there were so many bandits still around, but the escort was refused. Ser Hyle left his commission with the army to keep the lady safe on her travels. I must say I think it was real kind and thoughtful of him, that's what. Real self-sacrificing, too, for he left off his salary with the army and became a hedge knight for the sake of a lady, and everybody knows he's been trying to earn his way through to being landed so he could provide for his daughter. So when I discovered the new acolyte at the Citadel was none other than Ser Hyle Hunt’s daughter, I took an interest in your training. Now here you are, Alys Flowers, ready to sacrifice your own future to take care of Lady Brienne and the folk of Tarth. You are more like your father than you know."

"I don't feel that I ought to take you away from your post at the Wall," murmured Alys. "I mean--I don't think I ought to let you make such a sacrifice for--for me."

"I guess you can't prevent me now,” said Maester Samwell. “I’ve already sent a raven to Lord Snow and suggested a replacement maester for the Night’s Watch. So it wouldn't do me any good now if you were to refuse. Of course you and Maester Flint will take the help. Evenfall Hall won’t know what to do with two maesters and an acolyte managing its affairs. You'll get along all right. You just let your father know we’re even."

“Excuse me,” said Brienne abruptly. “I just remembered I left something at the armory.”

Brienne ran down the spiral stair of the tower as fast as full plate armor allowed and disappeared into the bailey as twilight lengthened the shadows of the Red Keep’s walls. She ventured to the empty armory and lingered in the room with practice weapons until full dusk, liking the peace and calm of the little place, with its strong scent of oiled leathers and tang of steel. When she finally left it and walked up the long hill that sloped to the White Sword Tower it was past sunset and all King’s Landing lay before her in a dreamlike afterlight. There was a freshness in the air as of a wind that had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover. Home lights twinkled out here and there among the crowded buildings huddled at the base of the city’s walls. Beyond lay the sea, misty and purple, with its haunting, unceasing murmur. The east was a glory of soft mingled hues, and the harbor reflected them all in still softer shadings. The beauty of it all thrilled Brienne’s heart as she gratefully remembered that she no longer had to relinquish either the seat of Tarth or the position of commander.

"Thank the Seven," she murmured.

Halfway up the hill a brown-haired man with a plain, honest looking face and a scar near his ear came whistling out of the gate that led to the city watch barracks. It was Hyle, dressed in his goldcloak armaments, and the whistle died on his lips as he recognized Brienne. He saluted courteously, but he would have passed on in silence if Brienne had not stopped and held out her hand.

"Hyle," she said, with scarlet cheeks, "This might be overdue, but I want to thank you for giving up your commission in the army to be my escort in the Riverlands. It was very good of you--and I want you to know that I appreciate it."

Hyle took the offered hand eagerly. "It wasn't particularly good of me at all, my lady. I was pleased to be able to do you some small service.”

“I just had an interesting conversation with Samwell Tarly. He seems to have a different view of what happened in Lord Tarly’s camp regarding the wager.” Brienne could feel the heat of her embarrassment spread, burning her ears and likely making her freckles stand out frightfully.

“As to that, well,” Hyle started to explain. “You didn’t seem open to an explanation from me at the time.”

“And later? You could have explained-”

“I tried,” Ser Hyle said with a grimace. “You brushed off all my attempts at apology. I doubt you would have listened to the truth if it came from my lips.”

“I was prideful, wasn’t I?”

“What I said at the Crossroads Inn was the truth: what I want to win is you. But you seemed uninterested, so I thought to appeal at least to your practical nature.”

“And the other things you said that night?” _Gods, where did she find the courage to ask such things?_

Hyle’s face split into a mischievous smile. “Are you speaking of playing the game? Shall I steal into your chamber tonight and show you-”

Brienne laughed self-consciously and tried unsuccessfully to withdraw her hand.

“Are we going to be friends after this, my lady?” Hyle asked hopefully. “Have you really forgiven me my old fault?"

"I forgave you that day by the bridge, although I didn't know it at the time and didn’t even know the full story. What a stubborn woman I was. I've been--I may as well make a complete confession--I've been sorry ever since."

"We are going to be the best of friends," said Hyle, jubilantly as he tucked her hand firmly in the crook of his arm. "We were born to be good friends, Brienne. You've thwarted destiny enough. I know we can help each other in many ways. And of course we both love Alys. You are going to stay in King’s Landing, aren't you? So am I. Come, I'm going to walk the Lady Commander of the Queensguard back to her quarters."

Brienne met Hyle’s eyes and took a deep breath. “Alys and Maester Samwell are still there. Perhaps we could go to your chambers?”

Alys looked curiously at Brienne when the latter entered the tower later that evening. "Who was that came up the stair with you, Brienne? He didn’t come inside."

"Ser Hyle," answered Brienne, vexed to find herself blushing. "I met him on my way back from the armory."

"I didn't think you and my father were such good friends that you'd stand for half an hour on the landing talking to him," said Alys with a dry smile and a twinkle in her eye.

"We haven't been--we've been good enemies. But we have decided that it will be much more sensible to be good friends in the future. Were we really there half an hour? It seemed just a few minutes. But, you see, we have ten years' lost conversations to catch up with, Alys."

Alys sat long at her window that night companioned by a glad content. The wind purred softly in the city streets, and the scent of seaweed at lowtide came up to her, reminding her of Tarth. The stars twinkled over the crenelations on the walls surrounding the keep and the harbor lights gleamed through the quiet night. Alys’ horizons had closed in since the night she had sat there after returning from the island; but if the path set before her feet was to be narrow she knew that flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it. The joy of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial friendship were to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her ideal world of dreams. And there was always the bend in the road!

" _T_ _he Seven Gods who made us all are listening if we should call. So close your eyes, you shall not fall, they see you, little children_ ," whispered Alys softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The passage at the end is a quote from The Song of the Seven.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this fluffy post-canon story.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked any portion of this, I owe it all to Lucy Maud Montgomery and her writings about Anne Shirley. Anne of Green Gables is in the public domain and can be [read for free online](http://www.literature.org/authors/montgomery-lucy-maud/anne-of-green-gables/).


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